Patience and Grace
by Ellie Sculder
Summary: Mulder always intended to tell Scully his biggest secret; however, she learns of it on her own. Circumstances beyond their control lead to huge changes for them to face together. As they begin to build a new life as a family, they encounter some of their biggest challenges yet.
1. Prologue

**Title:** Patience and Grace

**Rating: **This prologue is PG-13; might get more mature later on

**Summary: **I've been working on this series off and on for a long time, and am finally getting myself organized to post. A year or so after getting together romantically in the wake of her remission from Cancer, Mulder and Scully face a new challenge, brought on by Mulder's torn

**Spoilers: **Pilot, One Breath, Colony/Endgame, Memento Mori, Christmas Carol

**Disclaimer: **Characters, with the exception of Kyle, are all the property Chris Carter.

**Prequel**

No matter what she did, she couldn't sleep. She was sick of even attempting to try. For the past two nights, the bed had been too lonely, even when she propped up a ridiculous amount of pillows along her back to trick her body into thinking he was there. She dragged herself to the couch, but it smelled too much like the last time they had made love for her to slumber. She couldn't concentrate on reading, and watching television would only make her even more hyper. She glanced at the clock. 7:30 PM.

This was ridiculous, she thought. She was going Philadelphia.

_Two Days Earlier_

After a marathon performance of autopsies, all Scully could think about was home, Mulder, and a glass of red wine. By the time she dragged herself to her apartment, it was nearly eight o'clock. As soon as she walked in the door, she tripped over an unzipped carryon and a dry cleaning bag.

"Where have you been?" Mulder asked as he kicked his bag to the hallway and picked up the dry cleaning. "I thought I would see you before my flight."

Scully looked at him open-mouthed. She had completely forgot. "You're leaving tonight?"

Mulder had been invited to deliver a paper at a conference on a profile that had developed during a highly publicized case . Unfortunately, his success in profiling and arresting the perp before he had killed his sixth victim had led to more consults at his old division, which meant that Scully had been seeing more and more time in forensics. If he hadn't practically been living at her apartment, she would have never seen him over the past two months.

"My cab's outside. I'll be back Sunday afternoon," he said, bending down for a kiss. "I'll call you later."

And call he did. Their recent work separations had resulted in them practicing the art of phone sex. However, Scully craved the real deal. It was frustrating for her—they had been separated so much over the past several weeks that the last thing she wanted was another weekend apart. She was in the position to remedy the situation so she was going to seize the moment.

_Present Day_

It was after midnight by the time she reached the hotel.

"Can I help you?"

Scully hadn't realized that she must of appeared as dazed and confused as she felt. She looked around nervously, making sure there was no one she knew hanging around the lobby, even though only a handful of FBI personnel were attending. She made her way to the lobby desk, hoping that she wasn't blushing. She hadn't actually thought of what would happen once she reached the hotel. In formulating her great plan, she had gone so far as getting to Philadelphia, and then did not pick up again until she and Mulder were in bed.

Her fears were somewhat allayed when she realized that the clerk was a friendly senior citizen bearing a name tag which read Doris. "Are you meeting someone here, dear?" Scully was surprised. "I am, actually. My, um, flight got in late."

"I'll just need the party's last name," she smiled.

Now she was the one definitely blushing. "Mulder," she said. "He checked in last night."

"Ah, here is his record. I see that he's a longtime Starwood customer. He has a very low rewards member number," chatted Doris in a kindly manner.

"Since our company bought over all those motel chains, we can see exactly when and where people stay," Doris continued. "It's quite interesting to see the exciting lives our guests are living," she said with a wink.

Scully smiled, hoping that her impatience wasn't showing. "He travels a lot for work," Scully agreed, forcing a small smile. Maybe Doris was onto something—perhaps the reason Mulder had dragged her to so many horrible motels was he could hit the rewards points jackpot. She considered asking Doris how many points Mulder had, when the older woman sighed. "This is very sweet, dear."

"What?" Scully asked.

"I'm just looking at Mr. Mulder's record. It's quite romantic, really."

"What?" persisted Scully.

Doris looked up from her computer screen. "Someone made a note saying that Mr. Mulder's wife often surprises him when he travels."

"We aren't married," Scully responded, confused and agitated. Why couldn't Doris have been a no-nonsense college student who would just wordlessly hand her a keycard or had offered called up to Mulder's room?

"I didn't mean to come across so curt," Scully apologized, seeing that Doris looked taken aback. "I just had a long day, and I shouldn't have been so gruff. Could you just let me know when that note was made in his account? It's just that no one has mentioned it to me in the past."

"Our computer system only goes as far back as 1992, and I see that this particular note is one of the earliest entries. So it could be older," Doris said, somewhat suspiciously.

A wave of nausea overcame Scully. She knew that there were a dozen reasonable explanations for the note—it could have been something from an undercover case, a prank from one of the Gunmen, a one night stand. This didn't mean that Mulder was hiding a secret marriage from her.

The clattering of heels jerked Scully away from her thoughts. Someone had jointed Doris at the counter with two cups of steaming coffee. "Thought you could use the caffeine," the younger woman said to Doris. "Are you looking at Room 502's record? Isn't that sweet? I checked in the wife and son earlier today. Did they call for room service? I know they were having trouble getting dinner reservations."

Scully felt Doris glaring at her. Great, Scully thought. Now she thinks that I'm a homewrecker.

Not that she really cared.

She had much bigger problems on her hand.

She wandered to a nearby plush armchair, hoping to catch her breath. She knew that the conference existed, and that Mulder was presenting. She had bumped into Skinner at the Hoover earlier in the week, and he had mentioned that if Mulder continued to play nice with the other departments, their next budget meeting might not be as painful as usual. That was her starting point. She needed to focus on what she did know rather than what two hotel clerks who were battling through a long graveyard shift told her.

"Excuse me?"

Scully looked up, and noticed a tall boy, holding a Gameboy, approach the front desk. "I was wondering if you had any Double A batteries."

"Do your parents know you are down here?" asked Doris.

"They are 'talking' right now," the boy wryly responded, emphasizing _talking_. "In any case, I need the batteries. I have cash, or you can charge it to my Dad's room. 502."

"I'll be right back," the younger clerk said to the child.

Scully tried her hardest to not look in the boy's direction. She was tempted, and wasn't sure what would be worse—knowing or not knowing.

"Ma'am?" Doris called out to her. "Will you be checking in?"

Now Scully was really embarrassed. "No," she said softly. "Thank you for your help."

As she found her bag and turned around, making eye contact with the boy was unavoidable. She managed a nod and a small smile—a run of the mill, everyday greeting that you would give a stranger who happened to be an elementary school student or a senior citizen.

The boy had hazel eyes.

By the time she got back home to her apartment, it was nearly six am. Her mind was racing, the nausea hadn't left, and physically, she was exhausted. Somehow, she remembered the sleeping pills her oncologist had prescribed. She had refilled the last prescription, but had never opened the bottle. She took two with a swig of water, and crawled into the empty bed, praying she would fall into a dreamless sleep.

"Frohike, it's me. Turn off the tape," Mulder barked. He had been trying to reach Scully all day. He had successfully filled both her cellphone voice mail and landline answering machine with messages. If their phone sex encounter two nights earlier was any indication, she would be expecting a call. Something was wrong.

"How are you, professor?" Frohike joked. "How were your students? I'm sure you had half the female attendees show up."

"I can't get a hold of Scully. I spoke with her Thursday night, got an email on Friday afternoon, but nothing since then. I'm getting worried," Mulder said. "I don't want to have to call her mother. Trace her phone, credit cards, the works."

"We know the drill, Muldy," Frohike said. "Call me back in half an hour."

Logically, there were thousands of explanations for not hearing from Scully—she was out, her cell died, her power at home was out, she was at the movies, she was at work. But he had a sinking feeling that something was wrong.

"Damn," Frohike muttered, looking up from his computer. "Mulder, you're an idiot."

"What?" Langly and Byers asked in unison.

"Scully flew to the fair city of Philly last night, and then flew back to DC less than two hours later," explained Frohike. "She didn't check in to any hotels, but I looked up Mulder's Starwood account, and two guesses as to what was still on it, and the first guess doesn't count."

"He never changed that?" Langly asked. "Even after he and Scully started going at it?"'

"Scully probably doesn't even know. It's not like the clerks give you your life story when you check in at a hotel," Byers rationalized.

"When was the last time you checked into a hotel?" bickered Langly.

"I always knew Mulder was a glutton for self-punishment, but this goes above and beyond the call of duty," Frohike said. "It gets worse."

Byers and Langly stopped squabbling and snapped their heads in Frohike's direction.

"Yesterday afternoon, Diana Fowley checked in to Mulder's room. She then booked the room adjacent to Mulder's in her name. And then last night at 12:35 AM, a charge was made to the room."

"We still don't know what Scully knows," reiterated Byers.

"She must suspect something if she's off the radar," Langly pointed out.

"Mulder's going to be calling any minute. What do I tell him?" Frohike asked. Although Mulder could be a jerk, he was his closest friend. Weighing his friendship with Mulder against what he felt for Scully was like comparing apples and oranges at this point.

Frohike had made a promise to Mulder a few years earlier—never tell Scully about his ill-fated marriage to Diana, or about the existence of his son, Kyle. At the time, Mulder was scared. Scully had just been returned from her abduction, and Mulder was convinced that it had all been his fault. He felt that it would be safer for her to know as little as possible about his complicated relationship with his ex-wife and child, in efforts to shield all parties from future harm. The less they knew the better.

Back then, Frohike agreed with Mulder's logic. Witnessing the aftermath of Mulder choosing Scully over the Samantha clone and the agony that went with that choice, Frohike continued to protect his friend's interests. He didn't doubt for a moment that if Mulder were ever in a position in which he had to choose again, he would break. So whenever he received a phone call from Mulder, asking him to book tickets to Toronto, Orlando, the Grand Canyon, Frohike never asked questions.

Not to say it didn't make it difficult when hours later, Frohike would get a phone call from Scully. He learned to read her tones when she called, when it was okay to lie and say that Mulder was playing videogames with them; sometimes he would be so bold as to invite her over, knowing that she wouldn't call his bluff. As much as Scully was a guy's girl, she knew that the boys needed their time and space alone.

Most of the time, he would explain that he got a lead through one of their sources. That was sometimes true. Frohike estimated that about half of the famous Mulder ditches were actually day trips or overnight trips that involved seeing his son. He almost felt sorry for Mulder on more than one occasion when Scully would ream him for ditching her. Almost, but not really.

Because, in reality, what Mulder was doing was worse than ditching. He was living a lie.

_A few months earlier_

Frohike came close to breaking several months earlier, shortly after Emily's death. Scully had sounded lonely over the phone. She explained to Frohike that she had woken up in the middle of the night to an empty bed, and panicked when she realized that Mulder's overnight bag was gone. He wasn't answering his cell phone, and there was no sign of him at his apartment. The alarm bells went off in Frohike's head when he realized that Dana Scully was panicking.

"I actually just talked to him," Frohike managed to sputter out. "He didn't want to wake you. He said that you were having enough trouble sleeping. He wrote you a note but in typical Muldy fashion, he brought it with him." He even chuckled a bit for effect.

"He had to drive up to the Rhode Island house. The police called him—some neighborhood kids had broken in and they were using it as a party palace," Frohike continued to explain. They asked him to drive up today to assess the damage. He wanted to get it over with, so he left right after he got the call. He'll be back this afternoon."

"If you talk to him, let him know that I called," Scully said quietly.

"I will. And um, Scully? If you want to come over, we're all not doing much today. We even just happen to have some of your favorite beer in the fridge."

He wasn't planning on extending the invitation, and he certainly wasn't planning on her accepting it. "Maybe," she said slowly.

"Our Saturday tradition is pizza at five," Frohike said. "I'm just throwing that out there."

The boys had spent the next two hours faking police reports and tracking down Mulder. Frohike knew that Mulder turned his phone off when he was spending some quality time with Kyle, but that he checked his messages frequently. "Code red" was the extent of Frohike's voice mail, and it did the trick.

"What's wrong? What happened?" Mulder asked.

"Scully panicked," Frohike answered. "And you didn't leave that goddamned note. Luckily, you and I rehearsed our cover story."

"Shit," Mulder said. "I bet it's in the car."

"She needs you, man," said Frohike. "She sounds horrible. She's coming over here for pizza and beer, and I suggest that you make your original flight and get your ass here."

"All I wanted was to watch my son's baseball game," Mulder sighed.

"You should have told her," Frohike hissed. "Then you wouldn't be in this mess. It's not fair to her, it's not fair to your son, and it's not fair to you."

"I'm trying here, Hickey," said Mulder. "What do you expect me to say to her? Your daughter's dead so I'm off to see my kid who I for got to tell you about. Have a nice weekend? That would break her heart."

"For someone who is claiming to be self-less in this whole mess, you are a selfish prick sometimes," Frohike added. "See you at seven. And call her."

_Present day_

These thoughts left Frohike's mind as he saw the ringing phone in front of him. He looked up at Byers and Langly, who stared back at him blankly. "Hey Muldy, we're going over to her apartment now. It looks as those she's still in DC. No activity on her card this afternoon," he said, choosing his words carefully. "We'll call you with an update from there. Hang tight, it'll be fine."

Frohike noticed the hesitation on his friends' faces.

"What else was I supposed to say?" he sputtered.

"You did the right thing, Melvin," Byers answered. "Let's just go to Scully's apartment and see what's going on.

They let themselves into the apartment. Langly made a beeline to the phone. "Ringer's off," he said, before checking the messages.

Byers saw the suitcase by the door, and lifted it, noting that it was still packed. He poked his head in the living room, where he saw a pillow and blanket messily thrown on the sofa. Nothing out of the ordinary—since the "Sculdervelopment" as the trio had nicknamed Mulder and Scully's relationship shift, Scully's apartment was never as pristine as it was before her abduction. He ventured towards the bedroom—the door was open, and he saw a sleeping figure curled up on one side of the bed.

"This isn't good," Frohike said in the kitchen. Immediately, the others ran to him. He held up a prescription bottle for their inspection.

"Relax, she just took two," Byers said. "And the date on this is a year ago. She's not used to them. She probably popped them when she came in to sleep. You know she has trouble sleeping when he's not around."

"But what are they?" Langly asked, snatching the bottle from Byers.

"Sleeping pills, you dumb hippie," Frohike snapped. "Look up the prescription online. See how long it takes to get out of your system."

"Give me a second, geez," Langly muttered, off in search of Scully's laptop. He emerged from the living room a couple of minutes later. "A dose of two pills would be enough to put someone under from six to nine hours. She's more underweight than the average user, so it may be longer."

"It's five thirty now," Byers said, looking at the clock. "She probably got in around six or seven, so she should be up soon.

"I am in the room. Feel free to ask me," Scully said.

The trio whipped their heads around, looking at a yawning Scully, clad in tattered sweatpants and a grey t-shirt. "All three of you look guilty, but I don't think it's because you just went through my medicine cabinet."

A cell phone rang. Frohike looked at it. He looked up, and saw that Scully was pretending not to hear it. "I have to take a shower, and when I get back, I expect the three of you to be here."

"She's fine, Mulder," Frohike said into the phone. "She took a sleeping pill and was conked out all day. The ringers to her phones were off. She didn't look too surprised to see us."

"Thank God," Mulder muttered. "Is she sick? Can I talk to her?"

"She just went into the shower. I'll have her call you when she gets out."

"Give me the phone, Hickey," demanded Byers, who wrestled the phone away from his friend. "Mulder, it's Byers."

"What the hell is really going on? What are you guys holding out on me?" Mulder asked, absolutely panicked.

"Listen, Mulder, I don't know if it's my place to tell you or not, but Scully flew out to Philadelphia to meet you last night, and then flew back less than two hours later. We don't know anything for certain beyond that."

"Shit," Mulder muttered, punching a wall in his hotel room. He had been going stir-crazy since he had wrapped up his panel earlier that morning. "Shit."

"You knew this was going to happen at some point," Byers gently added, handing the phone back to Frohike.

"Get a sense of what she knows," Mulder began, but he was interrupted.

"No, Mulder," Frohike said. "That's your job, not ours. We protected you for as long as we could, but it's not our job to lie for you anymore. She deserves to have this conversation with you, not us."

Mulder was silent, and angry with himself. For as much as he hated to admit it, Frohike had been right all along. "She's going to want answers now," Mulder murmured.

"What do you want us to say?" Frohike asked, this time more tenderly.

"Use your judgement," Mulder said helplessly. "I'll call later. I'm getting the next flight out of this godforsaken city."

As soon as he hung up the phone, he threw it across the room. It bounced off the television console and landed on the floor with a clatter. In protecting the two people he loved most in the world, he had somehow fucked everything in his life up. He always knew that his lies would catch up with him, and now that it had finally happened, he had to think of a way to fix everything. He knew that he only had one chance to explain it all to Scully, and he had to hope that she would somehow understand why he had lied.


	2. Chapter One

_Four months later_

Mulder breathed a sigh of relief as he pulled into their destination. The eight hour drive had been peppered with traffic diversions and bottlenecks due to highway construction, but somehow they made it onto the ferry in one piece. Kyle had been practically bouncing off the walls in the back seat of the SUV, and was five dollars richer, having won a bet with his father, and hadn't asked any questions about how long it would take to get to Martha's Vineyard.

Before Mulder had even cut the engine, Kyle had bounded out of the car, running towards the back of the house. "Too bad he doesn't like it here," Mulder deadpanned as he pushed his sunglasses over his head to get a better look at his partner.

Throughout the entire drive to the Vineyard, Mulder had reminded himself again and again about how lucky he was that Dana Scully was sitting beside him in the passenger seat, arguing with him over his interpretation of some case files, during their drive to the Vineyard. Kyle loved hearing about their work, and had prepared a list of questions for the long car ride. It had been Scully's idea the night before, when they were engaged in some frantic, last-minute late-night packing the night before. Kyle's questions were distracting his father, and Scully cut in with the suggestion before Mulder went off on a tangent.

"This is a beautiful house," Scully gaped as she climbed out of the car, soaking in the picturesque scenery of the mansion and the lush grass that surrounded it. "It's huge."

"It was my grandfather's pride and joy," Mulder responded, walking over to her. "My happiest memories from growing up are all from this place. You can't see the water from here, but it's a two minute walk down the slope. I'm sure Kyle's down there right now."

He tentatively pulled her into a hug. "Thank you," he whispered.

"For what?" Scully asked quizzically, looking into his eyes to try and get a read from them.

"For being here," Mulder said quietly, taking her hands and rubbing his thumbs over them.

"I'm here because I want to be here," Scully said kindly, yet firmly.

The past few months had been bumpy, to say the least. Mulder was still haunted by the image of Scully's stricken face when he had walked through her apartment door after returning from Philadelphia ten weeks earlier. His normally stoic partner was practically shaking, and refused to look him in the eye until they were alone. The Gunmen had excused themselves, and all three had given Mulder looks of death as they filed out of her apartment. Mulder couldn't blame them, not really. He had made his bed, and was now lying in it. They had all warned him that something like this would happen, and instead of facing the problem head on, he let it get out of control.

Up until the moment that the door clicked behind Langly, Mulder had been convinced that Scully would have thrown him out before he could get a chance to be alone with her. "I owe you an explanation," Mulder began, shrugging off his leather jacket and sitting on an armchair opposite her on the couch. She looked unusually frail with bare feet, clad in flannel pajama bottoms and one of his old grey t-shirts. Her red hair was practically curly, something which he secretly loved because it usually meant they were too busy in bed for her to straighten her hair, a near-religious daily ritual which she usually undertook first thing in the morning.

Scully chewed on her lower lip, turning to face Mulder for the first time since he walked through the front door, which he had opened with his key. How could she have been so stupid, she thought. Stupid Dana, her conscience chimed, of course this relationship would have never worked out. Silly girl, falling in love with a man like Fox Mulder, giving him the key to your apartment—and your heart—without a second thought. She shut her eyes as the bile crept up her throat, trying to drown those whispers of insecurity that she had fought against most of her adult life.

"Tell me everything," she had managed to say, trying hard to not lose control of her voice. "If you want to make this work, we're staying up all night until you tell me everything. And I swear to God, if you lie, or if you leave anything out, even if I don't find out until later, I will walk away. So make your choice, Mulder."

Mulder inhaled sharply. Dana Scully, the queen of evasion, wanted them to lay all of their cards on the table. He took a moment and then followed her into the kitchen. "Do we have enough for more than one pot?" he asked.

Scully spun around, batting her hair away from her eyes. The fact that he had said 'we' was not lost on her. "We do," she softly answered.

"I'm turning off my phone," he said, sliding the device across the kitchen table island. "Nothing is going to interrupt us," he promised. He needed to make a gesture, he needed to do something that would indicate he was taking her ultimatum seriously.

"Unplug the landline?" she asked tentatively as she ground the coffee beans.

Mulder did as he had told, awkwardly leaning against the stove as he and Scully stared at the coffee slowly dripping into the carafe. "One thing," Mulder said impulsively, knowing he had to act before he talked himself out of it.

"Hmm," Scully said distractedly, still not looking at him, barely realizing that he was hovering over her, his right hand skimming her hip, while his left lightly tugged her towards him. "I need you to know how much I love you," he whispered. "It's going to get ugly, but it's going to get a whole lot better. You have to remember that."

"Mulder, you can't just—" she couldn't get out all of her words before his tongue was in her mouth. Before she realized what she was doing, she had begun to kiss him back, her body suddenly remembering that she hadn't done this in days. She cursed herself for succumbing to her instincts.

She half-heartedly pushed him away until the beep of the coffee machine interrupted them. "Stop distracting me with sex," she chided. "Not even angry sex is going to solve this."

"I wasn't trying to avoid our conversation," Mulder responded. "I promise I won't touch you again until we hash this out."

As predicted, their marathon conversation lasted through the morning, both of them propelled by three pots of coffee. Despite tears and shouting being involved numerous times, they kept at it. Mulder confessed it all—the fact that he had been married to Diana Fowley a dozen years before, and that they had a son. A son named Kyle, who was eleven years old and was curious, who Mulder loved desperately, but who lived in New York, and who he rarely was allowed to see. The divorce had been messy, but Mulder had chosen not to fight for custody because he didn't want to lose all contact with him in case he lost.

"It was the stupidest decision I ever made, not telling you about him," Mulder had confessed, sometime around four in the morning. "But I love you both too much to put you in Diana's path. She has friends, Scully, friends who are not our friends. The less you knew the better. You have got to believe me."

And she did. The Dana Scully who put such a premium on trust, honesty, and integrity, believed him as he sat, slumped on her floor, tears in his eyes, with emptiness registered on his face. Logically, she knew that if he was lying about this one huge aspect of his life, he had other secrets. But a child had been involved. If the tables had been turned, what would she have sacrificed if it meant that Emily could have been safe?

"Did you not tell me because I can't have children?" she asked, raising her voice.

"I don't know, Scully," he responded, sounding desperate.

"That's not a real answer, goddamnit," Scully shouted back. "Mulder, give me a real answer."

"Yes!" Mulder yelled decisively, sitting upright, a bolt of energy bursting through him. "Yes, I used that as an excuse not to tell you."

Scully's eyebrows arched up at the word 'excuse.'

"I broke your heart so many goddamn times by that point," Mulder yelled. "It was tearing me up inside. How could I keep sticking the proverbial knife in your back?"

And her response floored him.

Tears were running down her cheeks as she swallowed hard and said, "What have I ever done that would make you assume that I would not accept your child? How selfish do you think I really am? That's the real question—why the hell would you waste your time with me if you think I am that cold."

Mulder's eyes widened. He knew that secretly, Scully was extremely insecure about the Ice Queen talk that made its round at the Bureau, both at headquarters and at Quantico; the only refuge from those whispers was the basement, which was no longer open to them.

"Yes, Mulder, if you told me earlier, I would have been hurt, it would have been difficult, I would have cried, and I would have been angry, but I would never reject your child because through it all, I don't know why, but because I still love you," she managed to tumble the words out before burying her face in her hands.

"I never thought for a minute that you would reject him, Scully," Mulder said fiercely, knee walking to where she was on the floor, propped up against her couch. He forcefully moved her head up, cupping his hands below her chin, forcing her to stare him in the face. "That was never, ever, the reason. For the past five years, I've been snatching whatever weekends I can, whatever weeknights that are dangled in front of me on three hours' notice from Diana, with the most amazing kid. And as much as I try to concentrate just on him, and block out everything else—you, our work, even my search for Samantha—I still think about how much more fun it would be to have you with us. That a trip to the Museum of Natural History would not just be about the dinosaur exhibit because you would drag us to another wing; that you might even beat me at a contest at the planetarium to see how many constellations you can find in three minutes. And it's been hell. And I should have made different choices, but they were all driven by my crazy ex-wife, not because of you. And that's the biggest mistake I've ever made, Scully. I should have catered to you, not to her."

They fell asleep on the living room floor, crying together and hours later, Scully woke up, finding herself curled up against Mulder, clinging to him as though he was going to disappear. As she lay there, trying to process what was happening, she realized that she had woken because of the constant knocking at her front door.

"Stay," Mulder muttered in his sleep as she left his side.

"Door," she whispered.

She trudged to the front door, not bothering to look through the peephole.

"Why the fuck aren't either of you answering your phones?" Walter Skinner barked as he pushed his way into the apartment.

"Sir?" Mulder asked, groggily sitting up.

"Diana Fowley is missing," Skinner said.

"I'm here because I want to be here," Scully repeated as Mulder's eyes searched hers.

His mouth twitched, and he bent down to kiss her, only pulling away reluctantly, after Kyle announced his presence.

"Can we go swimming now?" he whined.

**NOTES:** Thanks for reading! The next chapter will have some more flashback scenes, but after that, all of the plot will be linear. Thanks for your patience—the first chapter was written a long time ago, so I apologize for the slight change of pace/tone in the story.


	3. Chapter Two

_Present Day, Martha's Vineyard_

"Can we go swimming? Please?" Kyle requested again.

"We have to see Hannah and Lyman first," Mulder said. "But if we hold off, we can do some night swimming."

Kyle's hazel eyes immediately brightened. "Let's do that!" he agreed.

"Should we stop at a grocery store and stock up on some food?" Scully asked, although the last thing she wanted to do was to climb back into the car.

"Hannah already went," Mulder said with a smile. "She usually does that for our first day. And when I talked to her yesterday, I even told her about your crazy bee pollen fetish, so don't you worry."

"So she assumes I'm some stuck-up health food freak?" Scully probed. Mulder had spoken very warmly about Hannah, who had worked for his family since he was a boy, mostly as a housekeeper/nanny, and then, after his grandfather had died, became the caretaker with her husband Lyman. They lived in a cottage that was part of the Mulder estate.

"No, she thinks you are a good influence, actually," Mulder smiled. "She's looking forward to meeting you. Kyle put in a good word for you too."

Scully couldn't help but blush. "Let's go tell her we're here," Mulder said, holding out his hand.

It almost felt strange, walking with him hand-in-hand towards the light green cottage. Kyle was running ahead, telling them to keep up, and as soon as Hannah opened the door, she had the eleven-year-old enveloped in a huge hug. "You've gotten so tall," she gushed, her snow-white hair pinned back in a complicated bun. "I'm thrilled you are here for the entire summer."

"Fox," she softly said when she noticed Mulder and Scully approaching the porch. "You look well."

Mulder bent down to kiss her cheek, and she patted the side of face with her right hand. "You look well," she repeated softly. "I'm glad you are spending time here. You need it."

"I know," he agreed as he hugged her. "There's someone special I want you to meet."

"Dana, I've heard so much about you, from both Fox and Kyle," Hannah gushed, immediately opening her arms for a hug. "I feel like I know you already. I feel so much better knowing that you are looking after these two when they aren't here."

Scully smiled, hoping that her face didn't betray how taken aback she felt. She knew that Mulder kept in close contact with Hannah, but she had assumed that their conversations centered around the upkeep of the estate, and more recently, on Kyle. "It's so good to finally meet you too," she said with a polite smile, catching Mulder's eye.

"I told you," he mouthed.

"I went to the grocery store, and I made some of your favorite cookies," Hannah gushed as she led them towards the main house. "And I have your rooms set up. Lyman also made sure to get some gas for the boat. It's in the blue shed."

"Boat?" Scully asked, surprised.

"Yeah, we have a speed boat but we don't go on it much because Dad gets really seasick. Sometimes he pukes," Kyle explained.

"Good thing Scully's a doctor, huh buddy?" Mulder asked, ruffling Kyle's hair before his son shrugged him off.

Hannah led them up the stairs to a wraparound porch, and opened the kitchen door with a key. "Now I don't want you to worry about me dropping off unannounced," Hannah said.

"You're always welcome here and you know it," Mulder interrupted. "You're family."

Scully was taken aback by the size of the homey kitchen. Although it boasted new appliances and had a huge marble island in the middle, of the room, it had a rustic feel. A huge wooden table ran alongside the exterior wall, and she could see a tupperware container of cookies and a few newspapers were neatly piled on one end.

"The meat is in the basement freezer," Hannah instructed, pointing to a bolted door on one corner. "And you should have enough food to avoid going to the grocery store over the weekend."

"This is great," Mulder said, giving Hannah another hug.

"I'm off to go volunteering," Hannah excused herself. "If you need anything, you know where to find me."

"Dad, when can we go night swimming?" Kyle asked.

"At night," Mulder quipped, grinning when he saw the look of frustration cross Kyle's face. "After dinner. And, after we unpack. We're not going to start grilling until everything is out of that car."

"What's the deal with night swimming?" Scully asked.

"We take a lot of bug repellant and a lantern and go down to the beach," Kyle responded, munching on a cookie. "Dad and I do it whenever we're here. But you can come if you want."

A small smile crossed Scully's face, and before she could accept, Kyle had scampered away, thumping up a staircase. "For the record, Scully," Mulder said. "I would have invited you too."

"I wouldn't be intruding?" Scully asked.

"Of course not. This is part of why we came up together, remember?" Mulder asked. "Don't ever think that you are intruding, okay?"

Scully nodded. "So night swimming it is."

A few hours later, as dusk was settling, the trio set out for the small private beach. Kyle begged to carry the lantern, and was reminded not to run down the slope that led to the water. Mulder followed behind with some towels, while Scully carried a tote bag packed with bug spray, a citronella candle, and a first aid kit. She wasn't taking any chances; Kyle had turned out to be nearly as accident prone as his father.

Kyle bounded into the water, shrieking at the cold temperature before admonishing his father to get in. Scully sat on the dock and dipped her feet in the ocean, not quite ready to jump in yet. Despite Mulder's constant assurances that she wasn't a third wheel, she wanted to give them a couple of minutes to themselves.

She sat back, thinking of how everything had changed over the course of the past four months. If she had been told a year earlier that she would be taking a three month absence from the Bureau to forge a family with her partner and the son she never knew he had, she would have laughed.

Scully had never not worked; even when she was in middle school, she babysat and helped neighbors with housekeeping and chores. She worked all through high school, college, and med school, trying to keep her student loans as minimal as possible. Now here she was, taking a 180 degree turn from her usual work ethic. But hadn't she earned it? She had taken minimal time off when she was sick with cancer, despite Mulder's protests that she ease her way back into a full-time schedule.

But making the decision to take a leave of absence had been so easy, it hadn't seemed like a life-changing decision at all.

_Four months earlier_

"Missing?" Mulder sat up groggily, fighting the lack of sleep. "How?"

"You might want to turn on your phone, Agent," Skinner snarled.

"Shit," Mulder muttered, making a beeline to the kitchen to find his cell phone.

"How did you find out?" Scully asked.

"I received a call from Agent Spender," said Skinner. "He's up in New York now and has been trying to reach Agent Mulder. The New York field office is handling the investigation."

Mulder was frantically dialing numbers, throwing his cell across the kitchen phone in frustration. He finally managed to plug in the cordless phone wire and started pacing as soon as he heard the dial tone. "Can I talk to him?" Mulder barked.

Immediately, his voice changed. "I'm coming up now, it's just going to take a couple of hours," Mulder said. "Are you having fun with Uncle Jeff?"

Scully thought her head was going to explode as her mind began to make connections. Spender was Mulder's half-brother and Agent Fowley's partner. No wonder Mulder had been climbing the walls at the office recently. Scully was betting that Diana was playing her ex against his brother, and her recent in work in DC was just upping the ante. Things were starting to click in her sleep-addled brain.

Skinner saw the look that transpired between the two agents when Mulder got off the phone and Scully called out his name.

"I'm getting the next shuttle to New York," Mulder muttered, running his fingers through his dark, spiky hair as he hunted around for his leather jacket.

And with that he was gone, leaving Scully to wonder whether he would have said more if Skinner hadn't been in the room.

Meanwhile, Mulder had paid through the nose to get on the next flight to New York, enduring a torturous cab ride from JFK Airport to the Upper East Side. He nearly had a heart attack when he couldn't find either his son or half-brother in Diana's apartment, barely comprehending the ASAC who both tried to direct him to the apartment downstairs where Kyle's best friend lived and handed him a note addressed to him in vaguely familiar script.

Mulder spent the next couple of hours in a haze, splitting his time between harassing the investigating team and annoying the polite but very reserved Sarah Bingham-Baker with his nervous energy. Her nanny usually walked her son and Kyle to school in the morning, and Sarah had taken charge when Kyle informed her that his mother—and most of her possessions—were gone when he woke up. "So will you be needing us to keep Kyle overnight?" she asked pointedly while sipping a cup of tea.

Mulder was stunned by the question, and before he could stumble over an answer, Sarah excused herself to answer a ringing phone. In an almost reflexive move, he called Scully.

"Are you guys coming home tonight?" she blurted out, before he could say anything. Skinner had managed to pass along a few details about the investigation, so she knew that it was looking like Diana had voluntarily left. She had stopped herself from calling Mulder a hundred times, not wanting to rock the boat. "Because the guest room is—"

"Yes," Mulder answered decisively. "We're coming home tonight."

_Present Day_

Mulder breathed a sigh of relief when he saw Scully shed her t-shirt and shorts and jump into the water. He knew that she was purposely giving him some time alone with Kyle; for the past few months, she had shown a great sensitivity to making sure that father and son made up for lost time, no doubt thinking of her own experiences growing up with a father who remained largely absent for most of her childhood.

Scully caught his eye as she swam closer to him. "Watchya thinking about?" she asked.

"Two things," Mulder said, snaking his arms around Scully's waist as best he could while watching Kyle swim towards them. "One, that first night when I brought Kyle to DC, and realized that you had somehow fixed up your guest room in just a few hours."

"That was nothing," Scully protested. "I know what it's like moving around as a kid, that's all. It was instinct."

"So you say," Mulder smirked. "And the second was when you said you would come here with us. And that was more than nothing, Scully."

"We needed to give ourselves a break," Scully agreed. "Three months on Martha's Vineyard in the summer. No work. No school. Making up for lost time."

"And then back to the DC grind in the fall," Mulder finished, bending down to give her a short kiss. "In a new home."

"Dad?" Kyle yelled, swimming towards him. "Are you listening to me? Can we set up the telescope tonight?"

"Sorry, buddy," Mulder apologized. "I haven't found the telescope yet, but we can set it up as soon as we can figure out where it went."

"Can we look for it tonight?" Kyle protested. "There aren't any clouds tonight, and it's supposed to rain tomorrow."

"Sure," Mulder agreed. "But let's enjoy night swimming first. The summer is pretty long, Kyle. We have lots of chances for clear nights while we're here."

"Dana, do you like looking at the stars?" Kyle asked Scully.

"Of course," Scully answered, smiling at Mulder. "You know, your Dad taught me a lot about the stars and the constellations and the myths."

"He taught me, too," Kyle stated. "He said we can look for the telescope tonight. We always set it up on the upstairs porch."

Please leave reviews, or let me know if you want to beta! Let me know what you think so far—now that the set-up is complete, there is lots more coming, if you are interested.


	4. Chapter Three

They spent their first two weeks on the Vineyard slowly getting used to living with one another, and Scully thought that it was going as well as could be expected. She knew that the handful of weekends the three of them spent with one another—a few in New York and a couple in DC—didn't really count. During the spring, all three of them were trying too hard, Mulder especially. But after ten days of consecutive co-habitation in a space with much more room than either Scully's apartment in DC or the place Mulder sublet in New York so Kyle could finish the school year, they had settled into a comfortable rhythm.

Although in many ways Scully had loathed their separation over the past four months, she knew that they both needed time alone. The knowledge that Mulder had kept his son a secret had left her reeling, but slowly, they were rebuilding their trust. In order to succeed, they needed to look forward, so they had agreed that she wouldn't throw it in his face, and he wouldn't hide behind his guilt. Although she was hurt, Scully knew that she would be in even more pain if they were not together at all. She knew that on many levels it didn't make any sense; however, she needed to trust her instincts, and her faith in their relationship, even more than she needed to rely on logic alone.

It was looking to be like another lazy morning when Scully finally decided to face the day at eight thirty. Mulder had accidentally-on-purpose woken her up a couple of hours earlier, around the time he usually went running. She had to say that she was enjoying a return to their early-morning sex routine, and judging from Mulder's enthusiasm, the feeling was mutual. After a quick shower, she made her way downstairs, where she saw hot coffee on the pot, along with a note in Mulder's messy scrawl that he had gone running. Scully smiled to herself, appreciative that Mulder was taking his promise to not ditch her any longer to heart.

She grabbed the newspaper on the counter, along with a mug of coffee, and dragged herself to the porch swing, which had become her favorite spot to sit in the morning; at that time of day, it was out of the direct path of the sun, allowing her to look out onto the water unobtrusively.

"Is Dad coming back, or did he forget?"

Scully snapped her head back to the sliding screen door, where Kyle was teetering between the kitchen and the porch, a worried look plastered on his face. "He's out running," she answered cheerfully. "Don't worry, he didn't forget."

"But the car's not in the driveway," Kyle protested, his voice shaky. "Dad said he would take me to the bookstore."

"He drove out to Aquinnah to go running on the trails," Scully responded calmly. "He left a note on the counter."

Scully bit her lip as she saw Kyle run out of sight, back into the house. He kept insisting that he was okay, but tended to panic a couple of times a day, usually when he wasn't sure where his father was, or if he sensed disagreement in the air. Her heart broke for him; no child should have to endure what he did, waking up one morning, getting ready to school, only to realize that his mother was gone, with no intention of coming back, and without having said goodbye. Scully was also learning that Diana had been rather strict with Kyle, and as much as he relished the fact that his father gave him a certain amount of freedom, he was always looking for approval.

Kyle came back to porch with a glass of orange juice, looking more relaxed. "Do you want chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast?" Scully asked, knowing that it was the boy's favorite.

"It's okay," Kyle said. "Your busy."

"I'm not doing anything," Scully protested. "I was waiting for either you to wake up or for your Dad to come back, because I hate eating breakfast by myself. And I'm glad you came down when you did because I'm starting to get really hungry."

"Really?" asked Kyle, his eyes getting wider, and a smile starting to tug at the corner of his mouth.

"Honest," Scully said, tossing aside the Times.

Scully figured breakfast to be a win; Kyle was chattering non-stop, and he even took over stirring the batter as Scully manned the stovetop. "Do you want to try flipping?" Scully asked.

"But what if I mess it up?"

"How can you mess it up?" Scully asked back. "We'll be right here, so it won't burn."

"But you make them round, what if I can't do that?" Kyle asked shyly.

"Pancakes don't have to be round," Scully patiently explained, tucking her red hair behind her ears. "And mine are round only because I've been doing this for twenty years. It takes a lot of practice. But the most important thing is that it doesn't matter what the shape is, it always tastes the same."

"I want to try," Kyle said quietly, with a determined expression.

Kyle quickly got the hang of it, and was even proud of his two misshapen attempts, joking that he could pass them off as chocolate chip burritos, prompting a laugh from Scully. They were so engrossed in their project that they didn't hear Mulder return home, not noticing his presence in the kitchen until he snuck up behind them, burying his face in Scully's neck while simultaneously ruffling Kyle's bedhead.

"You smell," Kyle complained, pushing his father away.

"You wound me, spawn-o-mine," Mulder joked back, sniffing at his soaked t-shirt.

"He has a point," Scully agreed, wrinkling her nose after Mulder leaned in for a kiss. "How was the run?"

"The run was great, but you are a traitor," he mumbled with a wink. "I'll be back in five. Don't eat all of this on me!"

By the time Mulder bounded down the stairs, they were just sitting down to eat. "These are really delicious," Scully said. "You did a great job.

"Thanks," Kyle smiled shyly, pouring maple syrup onto the corner of his plate.

"These are fantastic, buddy Good job. What time did you finally get up this morning?" Mulder asked Kyle as he poured himself some orange juice.

"I don't know, maybe like nine?" Kyle asked as he dug into his first pancake. "I had a lot of trouble sleeping."

Mulder hoped that the look of concern that he knew must of crossed his face didn't look too apparent. "How so?" he asked as casually as he could, locking eyes with Scully to see if they were on the same page.

"I heard weird sounds. I think that animal I told you about is back. It was kind of like a cat, but different," Kyle tried to explain. "It was really high and screechy."

Orange juice exploded out of Mulder's mouth and across the table, splashing both Kyle and Scully as he started a coughing fit. He glanced at Scully, who was turning tomato red. "Sorry, it went down the wrong way," Mulder choked out between coughs. So much for promising her that the structure of the old house would ensure that no one would be able to hear them through the closed bedroom door. She had argued with him that they should close the windows, but at that point he had stopped listening to her lesson on sound waves, making it a personal challenge to get her screaming before she could finish her next run-on sentence. He smugly smiled to himself. He had won that round in record time, a personal best.

"Why don't we put in that air conditioner in your room then?" Mulder suggested. "That would solve the problem. The white noise might help you sleep better."

At that point it was Scully's turn to cough, and although she didn't look up from her task of wiping down the table top, Mulder could tell that her face was still an unnatural shade of red. "Let's get that set up, and then we can go to the bookstore and go out for lunch. We haven't really spent much time in Edgartown."

"And then can we go swimming?" Kyle asked hopefully.

"If it isn't raining," Mulder promised. "Go clean out everything off your desk and windowsill, and I'll be up in a few minutes."

"Sorry," Mulder started as soon as he could hear Kyle thump around the upstairs hallway.

"I'm so embarrassed," Scully sighed, burying her face on the table. "Really embarrassed. I know he doesn't know, just the thought—"

"I should have listened to you," Mulder apologized with a wry grin. "But to be honest I'm not sorry it happened."

"I guess I'm not either. Better this than other scenarios," Scully sighed, throwing the towel she was using to wipe up the orange juice across the room into the kitchen sink, trying to figure out whether to laugh or cry.

"We got away with this one," agreed Mulder. "How was he this morning?"

Scully shrugged. "He was worried when he didn't see the car," she said. "But as soon as he realized you left a note, he was fine."

Mulder nodded, pushing back in his chair. The psychologist that he had dragged Kyle to had assured him that Kyle would be fine taking a break from seeing someone over the summer, and had already suggested an adolescent specialist in DC. If there was a crisis over the summer, he would be happy to speak with them by phone. Kyle hadn't argued with his father about the appointments, and Mulder hoped he would be just as receptive in the fall as he had in the spring. Kyle wasn't much younger than he was when his living situation changed after Samantha's abduction, and Mulder knew that he probably would have benefited from seeing someone. All the same, Mulder didn't want to make parenting decisions based solely on his parent's mistakes.

"Maybe I should see if there are any sport camps going on in July," Mulder mused, finishing the last of his breakfast. "It might do him some good to get out of here a couple of hours a day, spend time with other kids. I just don't want him to agree because he thinks that's what I want him to do."

"We'll figure it out," Scully assured Mulder, reaching across the table to squeeze his hand.

Luckily enough it was Kyle who spotted an advertisement in front of the bookstore for a basketball camp, which would begin after the July 4th holiday weekend. "Would it be okay if we just went to see what it was like?" he shyly asked, nervously playing with his Yankees baseball cap.

"Of course," Mulder grinned. "I think I used to go to something like that when I was your age."

"Really?" Kyle asked, looking surprise. "Did you like it?"

"It was fun," Mulder responded. He glanced over at Scully, who gave him an encouraging look.

"Ooops," Kyle said as they entered the bookstore. "I don't have my summer reading list."

He looked guiltily at his father. "Can we go back and get it?"

"Did your photographic memory went on summer vacation?" Mulder joked.

"I—but—," Kyle sputtered, turning red.

"I have it," Scully waved a crumpled, goldenrod sheet of paper. "I just happened to find it with the stack of take-out menus you keep leaving on the counter."

"They are just suggestions," father and son said at the same time with matching earnest expressions.

"Is my cooking that bad?" Scully asked as they made their way through the bookstore, her hand entwined with Mulder's.

"No, we just want to give you a break," Kyle said, doing his best to sound charming.

"That's very kind of you," Scully responded with an eye roll. "Do you think that—"

"Fox Mulder?"

All three whipped around, where a woman with curly blonde hair, who looked to be a couple of years younger than Scully, was standing.

"It's—I'm Caroline Taylor," she said softly. "I used to play with—"

"Samantha's friend," Mulder finished. Scully could feel him grasp her hand a little tighter. "I don't think I've seen you in ages. "

"This is Dana Scully and my son, Kyle," Mulder introduced.

"It's nice to meet you. Kyle, I think I saw you with your grandmother once when you were really little," Caroline said shyly. "But Hannah talks about you all the time. She said that you're a great basketball player. My son is a little younger than you, but he likes to play too."

"It's funny that I bumped into you like this," Caroline continued. "I was cleaning out my mother's attic a few weeks ago, and I found some pictures of me and Sam. I didn't want to just send them to Teena, but if you want them for yourself, or if you think she would care to have them…you would know best what to do."

"That's really thoughtful," Mulder tried to speak despite the lump in his throat. "I would."

"I saw Hannah earlier in the week, and she told me you would be around this summer. I mean to tell her about the photos, but I completely forgot t. I can drop them off to her or to you in the next couple of days."

Mulder shook his head. "Bring your family over for a cook-out on Saturday. Around four," he suggested, almost surprising himself. He knew he had made the right call when he could feel Scully squeeze his hand back.

Caroline nodded. "Sure," she agreed. "That would be nice. We'll see you then."

"Caroline?" Mulder said as she walked off towards the cash register.

When she turned around, Mulder said, "I haven't given up looking for her."

She nodded. "I know. I haven't either. She and I will have a lot of catching up to do."

"She was Sam's best friend," Mulder explained to Scully as Kyle started scavenging around for his books. "And she and her parents were real good to my mother after the divorce. In some ways, they were the only ones around here who treated us the same way after Sam was gone. Is it okay that I invited them over like that?"

"It was good that you did," Scully said. "As much as it is nice that we live in a bubble, it would be nice to have people over for a change in pace."

"I think I have all the books," Kyle panted, struggling with a stack of paperbacks.

"All seven?" Mulder asked.

"Yup, good thing I have a photographic memory," Kyle smiled.

By the time they got back home, it was nearly four o'clock, and Kyle had spent the short car ride asking whether they would have time to go swimming before dinner. Mulder promised him that they would be able to spend at least thirty minutes down by the water, but then stopped when he realized that there was someone in the kitchen. "It's just me," a man in his early sixties announced, getting up from his perch at the kitchen table. "Hannah let me in."

"Preston?" Mulder, extending his hand, which the older the man firmly gripped.

"Sorry to barge in on you like this," he answered in a tone that sounded as though the last thing he was apt to do was to apologize.

"Preston's my attorney," Mulder explained. "I don't think you've met Dana Scully before, and you remember Kyle."

Preston politely nodded. "I need to speak with you in private," he said impatiently.

Mulder glanced at Preston, then at Scully, then at Preston again, looking as though he were a deer caught in headlights. "Kyle, I'll get you when we're finished," Mulder said to his son. "Why don't you go watch TV or something."

"But you said we could go swimming—" Kyle protested.

"We will," Mulder promised. "Just not right now."

He waited until he could hear the television set in the other room before proceeding. "Whatever you can to me, you can say to the both of us," Mulder explained.

Preston looked skeptical. "I always advise my clients—"

Mulder gave Preston an unwavering look.

"This might take a while," Preston sighed, beginning, "About a year ago, you came to me about a vial of ova."

Both Mulder and Scully nodded. As Preston continued, Scully locked eyes with Mulder.

Kyle crept up to the door, hoping he could hear something. A half hour had passed since his father had sent him out of the room. "The answer is both," he could hear Dana say. My God, it's not even a question."

"We're sure. There's not even a flicker of doubt," he could hear his father say.

"Then you need to get down to South Carolina immediately," the stranger said. "And discretely. My people work fast, but not as fast as you need to be."

"We'll do whatever it takes," his father said.

Kyle sighed. He had a feeling he wouldn't be going swimming.

Note: Thanks for reading. Hope you like it so far!


	5. Chapter Four

Both Scully and Mulder were shocked into silence by what Preston Baldwin had just told them. The past fifteen minutes had been a blur for them both. Mulder's attorney had been forwarded two items:

Item one: A card signed 'Mantha' that read "The boys can't wait 'til you get back. They are having lots of fun, but are missing you tons. We love spoiling the only two babies in the family! They can't wait for Wednesday morning' with a Charleston address that had originally been mailed to the late William Mulder's house on the Vineyard, and forwarded onto Preston, who was handling the estate.

Item two: A medical file bearing the name of a family practice located in Charleston, with paperwork for two male children, one fifteen months old, and the other, twenty-eight months old. Buried in the medical notes, between visits noting vaccinations and well-child check-ups, was genetic work-up information. Also inserted in the file were the results of similar tests done on Fox Mulder and Dana Scully.

The card was postmarked four days earlier; it was Tuesday now, and they had to move fast.

Scully had snatched the file away from Preston before he could finish his sentence. She quickly scanned the file, her hands shaking. "We need to go there, now," she impatiently said. Shock was setting in. She had so divorced herself from the possibility of even having children, that she could barely fathom the news that had literally fallen into her lap. Now wasn't the time for her to start getting too lost in thought. They needed to nail down the practicalities of getting these two precious boys into their custody.

"You do realize that only one of these children is biologically yours, Dr. Scully?" Preston asked.

"These are Mulder's sons," Scully shot back, getting out of her chair, tossing the file back on the desk. "They both belong here with us. My God, it's not even a question. We need them both."

She sat back down, barely paying attention to Preston's explanation about the surveillance the Gunmen had been conducting over the past couple of days, which confirmed that the two toddlers were in the unassuming house in the Charleston suburb.

"Do you think—" Mulder began. "Could Samantha be…"

"The physical description," Preston said, coughing. "Is consistent with what Samantha would look like now, based on age progression models taken from family photos, and is consistent with the physical appearance what the woman claiming to be Samantha a couple of years ago looked like—height and weight-wise. But the Gunmen have been having a hard time getting a good look of her face unobscured. She also, from a distance, at least from the photos they sent me—"

"Who is it?" Mulder asked impatiently, his blood pressure soaring, his heart stuck in his throat.

"Diana," Preston said flatly, grimacing.

"How the hell can the Gunmen not tell Samantha from Diana?" Mulder demanded, his voice rising until he saw the look on Scully's face, and suddenly remembered that Kyle was only in the next room.

"We're trying, Mulder," Preston insisted, sighing. "But the Gunmen say that the boys appear to be healthy, and they seem to be happy."

Scully felt nauseous. She tried not to think of how ill-equipped the Gunmen really were in making such an assessment regarding small children. But that wasn't the issue they were dealing with, at least in that precise moment. She had to stop distracting herself, she chided.

Then a thought suddenly popped in her mind, and she began to shake. She turned to look at Mulder, trying to speak, but not getting the words out.

"Can you give us a couple of moments?" Mulder asked his attorney. He waited until Preston closed the door behind him, before kneeling down in front of Scully, who was slumped in her chair.

"What is it?" he asked patiently, tucking her hair behind her ears.

"As much as I want us to go and get those children this very second, I need to know whether we're trying to keep a little boy away from his mother," she managed to get out, tears falling down her cheeks. "I know he's your son, but if this like Emi—"

Mulder nodded, trying not to flinch upon realizing that Scully was unable to say her daughter's name. "It's probably in here," he said, reaching back to grab the file off the desk. Although he felt a twinge of guilt for not having that same thought, he was once again blown away by Scully's innate compassion. They were on the verge of getting what they both so desperately wanted, and she still and the wherewithal to think beyond whatever family unit they had forged.

Mulder turned the file around so they could both view it, flipping through the notes for the older boy. "It's the best possible scenario," he sighed. "There won't be any barriers."

Scully nodded, numb. Was utter relief that there would most likely be no custody battle an appropriate reaction?

"Diana won't be able to lay a finger on him," Mulder soothed Scully, who was still slightly shaking. Scully gripped his hand tightly, still unable to speak. "We can run our own blood tests."

Mulder, still crouching next to Scully's chair, tossed the file on the floor, and took a closer look at the note that Preston had left on the desk. His profiler instincts immediately kicked in, as he made cursory notes about the handwriting, which was most likely authored by a female under the age of 40. At first glance, the text was casual, but a more careful reading revealed that its breezy tone was forced. The fact that it had been sent to his father's address on the Vineyard was the detail that practically spooked him. Had it been Samantha (or even Diana) who wrote it, did she purposely not sent it to their grandfather's home, where they were staying? What would have happened if he hadn't received the message?

"It's four o'clock now. If we start driving in the next hour, we'll be there first thing in the morning," Mulder said slowly. As much as he wanted them both to be able to collect their bearings, he knew that they needed to move quickly. "Or we could fly out of Logan or LaGuardia later tonight using the Hale IDs and hopefully drive back later tomorrow."

"What about Kyle?" Scully asked, regaining control of her speech. "I can't see that he would want to be left behind, Mulder. Not right now."

Mulder's shoulders sagged. He had to admit that Scully had a point; it had been hard for him to see how withdrawn his normally bright and independent son had become since his mother had left four months earlier. Although Kyle had been making progress—the fact that he had asked about attending day camp earlier that day had certainly been a step in the right direction—Mulder wasn't sure how the eleven-year-old would react to his father leaving so unexpectedly. Every other time Mulder had left him in Scully's care, he had patiently explained where he was going, why, and when he would we back; this time, he wouldn't be able to give his son answers to any of those questions.

"We could leave him with my brother Charlie and his family—he has two boys," Scully offered. "He's in Cambridge; we'd be heading up that way if we flew out of Boston. And I'm sure that Hannah—"

Mulder shook his head, finally standing up. "There shouldn't be any danger in him coming with us" he reasoned. "It's not that I want him to get caught up in all of this, I would never put him in harm's way, but considering what we are doing, I think we would be sending him the wrong message if we left him behind."

Scully had to concede that point.

"We'll have a contingency plan," Mulder added, walking behind the roll top desk, squatting down to open the safe that sat underneath it. "He can stay with the Gunmen, out of the way, and they will make sure he's okay. He's a smart kid, Scully. And it won't get to that point. You hear what Preston explained—we just need to knock on the door, and the nice lady with brown hair will give us our kids, and we come home."

"So you don't think this is a trap," Scully blurted out, finally articulating what had been on the tip of her tongue since Preston left the room. She wasn't sure how Mulder, the most paranoid person she knew, could have such faith in his attorney's insistence that everything would go according to the simple plan he had laid out for them twenty minutes earlier.

"No," Mulder said as he pulled out some items from the safe, and spilled them onto the desktop. "Preston checked this out, Scully. He had the Gunmen working with him on this. I met Preston a dozen years ago through Senator Mathison; he isn't one of my father's cronies. He wouldn't have come up here if this wasn't to be taken seriously. This isn't me flying over the handle, going across the country half-cocked. There are precautions we have to take, yes, and I don't want us to tip anyone off about where we are going and why. But let me be the paranoid one here, Scully. It wears better on me than on you."

Mulder checked his watch again and sighed as he started to count the cash, and pointed to a small manila envelope. Scully took his cue and extracted three IDs. "I had the Gunmen make them before we got down here," Mulder said softly as he stuck a billfold in his back pocket. "Carry the cash that's in that envelope. I have another one for Kyle, just in case we ever get separated."

Scully flipped through the IDs—William Hale, Katherine Hale, Christopher Hale, all with the same address in New York City. She absently held out her hand when she heard Mulder say her name.

"Look at me," he instructed as she felt something pinch the ring finger of her left hand. "Please."

Scully looked up at him, drawing her breath as she realized what he was doing. "First, I want you to know that to me, we are bringing home our children, Scully—our children. Second, I know we still have a lot of work to do," Mulder began, his tone serious. "So just consider this is a placeholder until we get there, as us, and not as the Hales."

She was stunned. She stared at Mulder, who was looking back at her wide-eyed, waiting for her approval. "I don't have a doubt that we'll get there," she responded, extending her right hand so it cupped his chin, her thumb rubbing against the side of his mouth, which he reflexively tried to kiss. "I have not a doubt in the world that we'll get there together."

"I should call the Gunmen. Get a progress report See what airport they can fly us out of," Mulder said, holding her hand to his face, basking in its warmth.

"Wait," Scully said, not letting go. "Do I get to do the honors?"

Mulder blinked a few times before he caught on with her thinking. "I guess," he mumbled, suddenly embarrassed. He quickly located a gold band, which Scully slipped onto his left ring finger.

"We're getting there," Scully reassured him. "Together. Maybe more slowly than we would like, but we're getting there."

They left the room hand in hand, with Kyle pouncing on them as soon as they walked in the kitchen, where he and Preston were eating cookies. "I want to go with you," he immediately said, wiping crumbs off his face, and looking up at his father, his hazel eyes pooling.

"You're coming," Mulder said, ruffling his hair. "But you need to follow my directions. I'll answer all your questions, but some of them will need to wait until we get back, okay?"

"How long are we going? Where are we going?" Kyle asked immediately, a look crossing his face that reminded Scully of his father.

"We're going to South Carolina," Mulder said. "And we'll probably be gone for two nights. I need to you pack a bag with a change of clothes, but everything needs to fit into your backpack, okay? We're leaving in ten minutes."

Mulder glanced over to where Scully was standing, watching her tap her fingers on the granite tabletop. He could only begin to fathom the trepidation that she must be feeling; when he had told her about the ova and about the fetus he had seen in that laboratory, he had seen the look of shock on her face, and he remembered how it had turned into a flicker of hope. He needed to see this through, for her, and for him. It angered him to no end that other people were out there, raising his children. Even if it really was Samantha who was raising his sons, _their_ sons, he wouldn't be able to help but resent her for doing so.

"Don't worry, Scully. We're bringing them home," Mulder said.


	6. Chapter Five

By the time they flew into Charleston, rented a car, and met the Gunmen at their motel, it was nearly midnight. So far, Kyle had cooperated with his father's request to not ask any questions until they were back on the Vineyard, but Mulder could see that the suspense and confusion were starting to get to his son. During the car ride to the airport, Mulder had explained that they would be using fake IDs, and Kyle looked excited when he was handed a cell phone and a nylon wallet with money. "I thought you weren't working this summer," Kyle had responded as he stuffed the items in his backpack. "But it's really cool to go on an undercover case, just like on TV. Even if I can't tell anybody about it."

"Actually it's a little more complicated than that," Mulder had told his his son. "But we'll talk about it we get back home."

Hours later, Mulder still was unable to get his son's comment out of his head. He remembered all of the times he was shuttled down to DC to visit his father, thinking that he would be able to see the inner workings of the State Department, and instead ending up feeling like a nuisance upon learning that he should be not seen and not heard. While setting into their motel room, Mulder realized that he owed Kyle a better explanation.

"We need to talk, buddy," Mulder said as Kyle emerged from the bathroom in his pajamas. "Dana and I have something we need to tell you."

Scully looked up from her perch on one of the double beds. Mulder nodded as he met her gaze, and then they both stared at the door in alarm once they heard someone knocking. "It's Langley!"

Mulder opened the door, and Langley appeared in the room, looking sheepish. "Hickey and Byers are on their way," Langley explained. "And I just wanted to see if little dude here had any interest in going to an unlimited breakfast bar with me tomorrow. Air conditioning and waffles and maple syrup and chocolate chips—how does that sound?"

Kyle's eyes immediately lit up. "Can I, Dad?" he asked.

Mulder was touched by Langley's gesture. "Of course," he smiled. "That sounds like fun."

"Are you going to be on your case all day tomorrow?" Kyle asked.

"That's what we were going to talk to you about, bud," Mulder responded. "I was just going to apologize for dragging you away from the Vineyard. But all-you-can-eat waffles sounds fun enough."

"When I'm with Langley tomorrow, will I have to use my real name or the fake name?" Kyle asked excitedly, looking up at his father.

Mulder, Scully, and Langley all exchanged glances. "You'll be fine using your own first name if that comes up," Mulder said. "But keep the ID just in case. Langley will let you know if you have to use it. And if you two get separated tomorrow, use the cell phone and call Preston immediately, okay? His number is pre-programmed, and he'll be able to track down me and Dana."

Kyle nodded, and Mulder saw that he was still anxious. "I know this doesn't make sense," Mulder said, sitting next to Kyle on the bed. "But I promise to explain more once this is over, okay?"

Kyle shrugged. "I get it," he said, a tad despondent. "You can't talk about stuff you're investigating sometimes."

"Sounds lame, huh? But this is hopefully the only interruption for the summer, okay?" Mulder assured his son, ruffling his hair as they heard a knock at the door.

Byers and Frohike appeared, prompting Langley to ask Kyle if he wanted to play some unreleased video games in the Gunmen's room. "You're just trying to get me out of the room so I won't hear stuff about the case," Kyle whined.

"So does that mean you don't want to play?" Scully inquired as she sat down next to Mulder.

Kyle's eyes opened wide in protest. "That's not what I meant!"

"I'll come get you when we're finished," Mulder promised as Langley and Kyle exited the motel room. "Don't get too comfortable—we all need to get some sleep soon."

Byers cleared his throat before laying down the game plan for the following morning.

"We've seen both of the boys several times, and they look healthy and well-cared for," Byers finished five minutes later. "We don't think you will encounter any problems tomorrow morning. But we'll be tailing you, making sure that you aren't being followed."

Mulder nodded, looking at the map Frohike had spread on the dresser, staring at the different routes between South Carolina and the Vineyard the Gunmen had plotted. "So after we leave the house tomorrow, we'll drive to southern Virginia for the night," Mulder repeated. "We'll rendezvous with Preston mid-day somewhere south of DC, and hopefully make it to Delaware or New Jersey. Then we finish up on day 3."

"We'll be following you to DC, and then Preston's boys will take over," Frohike said. "Don't be tempted to drive through the night, Mulder. I know that you are used to road trips, but you are going to need to be on your toes."

Mulder nodded, obviously frustrated at the notion of only driving for relatively short stretches of time. "You're right," he finally said, searching Scully's blue eyes as she squeezed his left shoulder.

Neither of them got much sleep that night, and they tried to keep their whispering to a minimum as to not disturb Kyle, who was sprawled across his own bed only a few feet away. Mulder had spooned up against Scully, her head tucked under his chin, and kept fluttering his right hand on her stomach, something he had become in the habit of doing whenever he was nervous. Eventually, he felt Scully's breathing deepen, and her head gently burrowed into his left shoulder. Her change in movement must have relaxed him enough to get at least some sleep, as the next thing he knew, Scully was shaking him awake. "It's seven thirty," she said.

"Why didn't you wake me?" he sat up, slightly panicked. He looked around the room, and realized that both Scully and Kyle were fully dressed and the overnight bags were packed on Kyle's bed.

"Because I knew that you would insist on driving, " Scully wryly responded as she tucked her hair behind her ears and headed towards the bathroom.

"How long is your case going to be today?" Kyle asked as he played with the straps on his backpack.

"We'll meet up with you and Langley this afternoon," Mulder responded, trying to sound as casual as possible. "Probably somewhere in Virginia. It will take us a couple of days to drive back."

"Why can't we take a plane?" Kyle asked.

"We're driving back," Mulder responded as he found jeans and a t-shirt. He caught Kyle's look of frustration, and sighed. He remembered being eleven years old and full of questions, as well as being trapped in a room with a father who refused to answer any of them, or even do much by way of acknowledging his presence.

"I know it's not ideal," Mulder continued as he put on his sneakers. "But it's only a couple of days, and who knows, you might even like it."

"Can we stay somewhere with a pool?" Kyle pleaded hopefully.

"If we can find one, sure," Mulder answered, sliding his wallet in his back pocket. He peaked through the dusty blinds, and noticed that the Gunmen were packing up their vehicles. "It's showtime," Mulder called out.

"I'll be there in minute," Scully responded.

"Kyle, why don't you go out with Langley?" Mulder said absently. "I'll be there in a second."

As soon as he was sure that Kyle had left the room, Mulder let himself into the bathroom. Scully was standing before the sink, her palms pressed down on the tiled countertop, staring down at the drain. "We can do this, Scully," Mulder said softly. "It won't be easy, but we'll be able to do this. You'll be able to do this. This won't be like Em—"

"I know," Scully whispered wearily, cutting him off before he could say her name. "Let's get this done."

"We're in this together," Mulder said, tugging her left arm as she tried to brush past him.

"Look at me, please," Mulder pleaded once he noticed that Scully was avoiding his gaze. Immediately, a pair of pooling blue eyes looked up at him. He cupped her face, making small circles on her cheekbones. "We're in this together."

"I just don't—what if—" Scully stammered.

"We'll handle it," reasoned Mulder. "No matter what happens in the next couple of hours, we will handle it, together. We find those boys, limit our time in that house, and leave. One-two-three."

Scully nodded, frustrated with herself for letting her nerves get to her in such a way. "I'll drop the keys off at the office," she mumbled as she put on her sunglasses, accepting a kiss from Mulder before opening the motel room door.

"Dad, you were taking forever. We have to go, like, now," Kyle whined. Mulder couldn't remember the last time he saw his son so animated. "Langley said that sometimes they run out of the mint chocolate chips and I really want to try it."

"We'll see you this afternoon, buddy," Mulder said, his voice quaking as he gave his son a hug. He didn't want to alarm Kyle with the emotion that was escaping from his voice. "We'll miss you."

"It's just going to be a few hours," Kyle shrugged.

"I know," Mulder said. "But I'll—we'll still miss you."

"Where did Dana go?" Kyle asked, catching onto his father's use of pronouns.

"She went to return the keys to the front office," Mulder began. But before he could finish his sentence, he caught sight of his partner walking towards their rental car, and a split second later, realized that Kyle was walking towards her. He hung back, only walking towards them when he saw Kyle heading back towards him.

"See you later," Kyle said breathlessly as he ran towards Langley, who by this point, had gunned the engine of his rental. "Remember, find a place with a pool!"

Mulder watched Langley's car go out of sight as he walked towards Scully. "We'll see him this afternoon," Scully said as he slowly made his way to the driver's side of their car.

"We'll all be together," Mulder responded quietly.

The twenty minute drive to the suburban address listed on the postcard was mostly spent in silence. Mulder was tempted to drive past it once, but thought better of his plan and instead slid into the driveway, behind a red minivan. As he killed the engine, he took in the surroundings—the cheerful shade of yellow, the immaculate garden, and the swing set that he could see beyond the garage. "This looks picture perfect," Scully offered as she unbuckled her seat belt.

Mulder followed her lead, his nerves beginning to catch up with him. He grabbed Scully's hand as soon as he could reach it, and together, they made their way to the front door, pushing themselves forward. As they walked onto the porch, they began to hear voices from inside the house. As they stood in front of the door, with Scully reaching for the doorbell, they heard a young, chipper voice say with a southern drawl, "You're here! The boys will be so excited!"

Mulder leaned over to the left side of the house, where he saw a blonde woman with curly hair waving from the second story. "Come on in! I'm just cleaning up Nathan, we'll be down in a second."

They opened the door, and made their way into the house, which looked as perfect inside as it did outside. Once they stepped into the foyer, they were in the immediate line-of-sight of a playpen. Scully immediately gravitated towards it, leading her and Mulder into a spacious family room. Scully let out an audible gasp when they came face-to-face with a brown haired baby who was pulling himself up into a standing position. The boy shyly waived at them, sticking his other hand in his mouth for a few seconds, before bringing both of his arms over his head. "Up!"

Scully looked at Mulder briefly before picking up the boy, who immediately settled in her arms and began to smile. "Hey slugger," Mulder said softly. "How's it going?"

The response was a giggle and a sticky swipe at his nose, which made all three of them laugh. The boy burrowed his face in Scully's neck as Mulder playfully poked him back on the nose. "He looks like you. And Charlie," Scully whispered, cradling his head.

"Oof," Mulder said as he felt something hit the back of his legs. He looked down, and a dark-haired toddler looked up at him, giggling, as he held onto his legs and began to tug on his jeans. He bent down and picked the boy up. At first sight, he looked practically identical to Kyle as a two-year-old. "And how are you this morning, buddy?"

"Thomas train!" the boy tentatively answered, holding up a Thomas the Tank Engine, first looking at Mulder, and then at Scully. "Train's my favorite."

"They sure missed their momma and daddy," the blonde reappeared. "Mantha was sorry she wasn't able to greet you herself. But she did ask me to give you a message. She said it was important, and I promised her that I wouldn't let you leave without letting you know her news!"

Mulder and Scully looked at the children in their arms, and then at one another. So much for their one-two-three plan.


	7. Chapter Six

Scully squeezed the baby in her arms more closely once the blonde woman appeared in the room, and she noticed that Mulder had done the same. She hoped they could stick with their plan—to get the children out the house as quickly as possible, and to make their way north.

"I'm so sorry, I should have introduced myself," the blonde smiled. "I'm Valerie, 'Mantha's nanny. I just started last week. Mantha wanted to be here herself, but she needed to take Amelia to the dentist."

"So what's 'Mantha's big news?" Mulder asked casually as he adjusted the toddler on his hip, tickling the boy on his stomach. In return, the boy laughed, and tried to do the same thing to his father.

"Well, she asked me to give this to you," Valerie said as she turned around to pick something up, waving a flat, wrapped package at her visitors before tossing it on the sofa. "And she asked me to tell you that she owes you a game of Stratego the next time you see her, which probably won't be until after she and Di finish their next project, and she has no idea when that will be. But she's excited about the work, so big brother shouldn't worry about her and his niece."

"Thanks," Mulder managed to say as his mind began processing the myriad of questions that stemmed from Valerie's message, trying to block out the anxiety that soured his stomach upon hearing the word 'Di' come out of the nanny's mouth. Finally, he blurted out, "Tell her I won't worry, and I look forward to that game."

"I will," Valerie said excitedly. "They won't be back until this afternoon, and I know she said that you would need to get back on the road immediately. I have their stuff packed up by the door, and I'll need some help moving the car seats."

Scully breathed a small sigh of relief. They were almost free; she was also grateful that they wouldn't have to stop for the sole purpose of buying car seats. She wasn't sure how she would handle holding two small children in the backseat of the rental until they stumbled into a Kmart or Wal-Mart. She knew that they would have to stop somewhere to buy the boys clothes, diapers, and other essentials for their trip, but at least this way they would be able to put some distance between them and Charleston.

"Hey Nathan, buddy," Mulder said softly to the toddler in his arms. "Why don't you play with Mommy and Will while I get the car packed up, huh?"

Scully shared a small smile with Mulder as he set Nathan down on the floor without complaint. She did the same thing with Will before sitting down herself. "Doggy!" Will called out, pointing at the playpen.

"Woofy!" Nathan said excitedly, as he toddled to the playpen and began to hit its sides.

Scully got back up and peered into the playpen, spotting two stuffed dogs and two blankets. She picked up the four items and set them in front of her as she sat back down, and sure enough, both boys claimed their spoils. "Doggy!" Will cried as he held up a stuffed beagle with a slightly chewed up ear with a triumphant grin, handing Scully a blue blanket with frayed edges. To her surprise, he immediately sat in her lap, talking softly to Doggy in gibberish. Scully's eyes danced to Nathan, who was sitting on his dark green blanket, parts of it in tatters. He was enthusiastically bouncing Thomas the Tank Engine in his left hand and a stuffed dalmation in his right. "Woofy, Thomas," he repeated in a sing-song voice.

"Is your puppy named Woofy?" Scully asked as Nathan crawled a little closer to her.

"Yes," Nathan said, looking up at her with wide, hazel eyes. "I'm two."

"You're a big boy," Scully responded. "You must eat all of your vegetables."

"Yuck," Nathan scrunched up his nose.

"Uck!" Will repeated.

Scully smiled, as Nathan handed her Woofy. "Mine," he reminded her as he clutched Thomas tightly.

"Thank you!" Scully grinned as she gave Woofy a kiss and handed it back to the two-year-old. "Woofy is a very good puppy."

"I'm good!" Nathan said.

"I know, you're a very good boy," Scully smiled. She was relieved that she was able to communicate with the boys so easily, wishing that Mulder was sitting there with them but also hoping that they would be able to leave the house as soon as possible so they would be able to begin to connect as a family.

Mulder walked into the room a few minutes later, and gasped when he saw Scully sitting on the floor, one boy in her lap and the other at her side, playing with the stuffed animals. The light refracting through the bay window lent a certain softness to the scene, which he soaked in for a moment before speaking. "The car is all set," he finally said, walking over to Scully and the children. He picked up William as Scully took Nathan's hand while gathering the blankets.

Somehow, they managed to easily put both boys in their rather complicated car seats. Scully judged by their amount of wriggling that the boys wouldn't be too fond of a long road trip. She also used the opportunity to check the size tags on their clothing, making a mental note—she wanted any stops they would make to be as quick as possible.

"And these are the last two things," Valerie said, running to the driveway from the house. "Diaper bag and 'Mantha's present."

"Thanks for everything," Scully said as she accepted the diaper bag and swung it over her shoulder. She then took hold of the wrapped item, noting that the cream colored card read "Fox."

"It was no problem. Amelia and I will miss having the boys around during the day," Valerie explained. "They were great. You are lucky to have such easy-going kids."

"We are," Mulder answered as he fiddled with the car keys. He looked at his watch and began to tap the dial. "We better get going so we beat the traffic."

"Of course! Get to it," Valerie said, waving to the boys through the tinted car window. "Bye boys!"

Mulder and Scully gave Valerie a farewell wave as they backed out of the driveway. "Thank God," Scully sighed once the house was out of view. She looked in the back seat, and upon catching her eye, she heard Nathan say, "Ernie!"

She ripped open the diaper bag. Besides the diapers and wipes, she found a couple of tumbler cups, a ziplock bag of cheerios, a box of animal crackers, and other odds and ends. "Is this it?" Scully pulled out a Sesame Street CD, and slid it into the console, and was relieved to see a smile cross Nathan's face.

"We can probably get away with not stopping for supplies until after lunch," Scully said as she rummaged through the rest of the diaper bag. "There are some diapers and extra clothing in here."

"I have no idea what's in the duffle bag," Mulder responded. "But I used Frohike's metal detector and it didn't beep. It's probably just clothes, but I don't think I want to take that chance."

"We have the cash to get enough stuff to last us the trip," reasoned Scully. "And there are plenty of places near the Vineyard where we can get what we'll really need moving forward."

"I wasn't expecting this to go so easily," Mulder said, fiddling with the audio tuner so the CD played more loudly in the backseat instead of the front. "How the hell are we going to explain this to Kyle?"

"A simple version of the truth?" Scully suggested, suddenly distracted by cries emanating from the backseat.

"What's wrong?" she asked, as Mulder turned the music down. Will's face was scrunched up, and he was pointing to the floor. "Did Doggy fall?" She unclasped her seat belt and squeezed her way to the backseat, somehow managing to pick up the stuffed animal without falling over on either of the children.

While stopping for a diaper change at a rest stop an hour later, Mulder called Langley from a park bench to tell him that they were on schedule; he could hear Kyle in the background asking to talk to his father. "Is your case over?"

"It's over," Mulder confirmed, hoping that Will, who was sitting on his lap, wouldn't announce his presence. "We're going to meet up just before dinner."

"Can we do something fun tonight if you aren't working?"

"We need to get and early start tomorrow," Mulder responded. "We're meeting up with Preston for lunch."

"But I'll still be able to get up early," Kyle promised. "Langley said that there's an awesome ice cream place near where we'll be staying. And he said that there used to be a bowling alley, but it might not be there anymore."

"Let's settle for ice cream, okay?" Mulder said to Kyle as Scully rejoined him with Nathan settled on her left hip. Mulder reflexively smiled as he watched her interact with the children. She set Nathan down on the bench, pleased to see that he gravitated towards his father. She fumbled through the diaper bag, producing tumbler cups, bottled water, and the juice she had purchased from the vending machine. Mulder looked on impressively as she watered down the orange juice and gave each boy a mug. She then passed them both some Cheerios, which they immediately gobbled down.

"This should hopefully last them until lunch," Scully said once Mulder was off the phone. "Did you open the package Valerie gave us?"

Mulder shook his head. "Not yet," he said somewhat gruffly, accepting some smooshed Cheerios from Will.

"Do you think we should open it now?" Scully asked, trying to gauge Mulder's frustration with the situation. She wasn't sure whether Mulder was purposely ignoring her as he turned away and began to converse with the boys. It wasn't for another ten minutes, after they settled the children in their car seats, that Mulder responded to her question.

"The envelope—the writing on the front is Diana's," he said very softly. "I don't want Kyle to see anything that connects her to this. Let's just get it over with and dispose of the evidence."

Scully fumbled for the package, which was sitting near her feet, stuck between the diaper bag and passenger side door. She nodded to Mulder, indicating that he should be the one to open the envelope. Just as he was about to unfold the single piece of paper, he was interrupted by Nathan's cries. "Ducky! Ducky!"

"I think I know what that means," Mulder smiled, as he started the car and turned on the Sesame Street CD. "And, I think we're getting a hang of this parenting thing okay."

"Damnit," Mulder said under his breath, his expression turning sour as he skimmed the note, before passing it along to Scully. She stared at Mulder, who was gripping the steering wheel, his arms cradling his head. She whipped open the note, and grimaced. Fox—Don't they remind you of Kyle? Keep them close and they'll be safe in your Ever Ever Land.

"What does it mean," Scully asked quietly. Slowly, Mulder pulled his head up and sat back in his seat, his eyes closed and his hands raking through his dark hair.

"When Kyle was five, he became fascinated with Peter Pan, and that didn't go away for a couple of years. Instead of calling it Never Never Land, he called it Ever Ever Land. When he was about six, I asked him about these pictures that he was drawing. He told me that they are of Ever Ever Land, and most of them were me and him, and some of them included his friends. He said that his mother wasn't allowed because she didn't believe," Mulder explained. "While part of me was thrilled that I made the cut, that he and I were front and center of that picture, another part of me was devastated that he was only six years old and he could see that his mother was so disconnected from his life. I struggled with that. Some time later, Diana and I had some argument, and I'm not sure which one of us brought it up, but that's when I realized that she was aware of it. At first, I thought it bothered her, that she wasn't allowed in Ever Ever Land, but I don't know. I guess it doesn't matter."

Scully thought she saw a tear fall from Mulder's left eye as he recounted the story. "You're his hero, Mulder. He looks up to you, he adores you," she reminded him.

"I know," Mulder said, sniffling slightly. "But this note—Scully, it means that she's not going to interfere. I don't know if she's defeated, or resigned, or apathetic, but this means that we're in the clear."

Mulder took the note out of Scully's hands and slid it into his back pocket. As much as he wanted to ensure that Kyle did not see it, he wasn't quite ready to destroy it either. He knew that there was something that he was missing, that the note provided some clue that he did not yet understand.

"Mulder?" Scully repeated.

"Yup?" he jolted out of his fog, hoping that he had only spaced out for a few seconds; the look on Scully's face told him that she was worried.

"Sorry, I just know that I'm missing something here," he tried to explain.

"Do you want me to open this?" Scully asked for the second time, interrupted by some frustrated cries in the backseat. She turned over and saw that both boys were beginning to fidget in their car seats.

"Shouldn't they be genetically predisposed to long car trips?" Mulder cracked as he began to pull out of the parking lot.

"Them in their carseats is like you on an airplane," Scully bantered, Mulder throwing her a wounded look as they settled back on the highway.

After another round of Rubber Ducky, Mulder suddenly said, "Open it."

Scully carefully unwrapped the package, which revealed a photo album. She suddenly gasped upon opening it, quickly turning the pages and then flipping back to the beginning of the book. Now it was her turn to tear up. "It's their baby pictures," she whispered, surprised at how choked up she felt.

A wave of emotion swept through her; sadness and anger for not having been a part of the boys' lives from the beginning; anxiety for not knowing how they were treated; and relief and happiness that they were now with her and Mulder.

She continued to page through the album in a daze. She could see that William had been born a towhead, much like her, his hair growing darker throughout his first year, and that Nathan's hair became curlier as it grew. She then began to reexamine the background of the photos, hoping that there was some clue as to how the boys spent the first years of their lives.

"Most of these seem to have been taken at that house," Scully narrated. "There are no marks or bruises on the boys, thank God. But I see Valerie's reflection in a few of these photos, but they must have been taken at least six months ago—William is crawling."

"The whole 'I was just hired' routine was probably a lie," Mulder said. "She wouldn't want us to ask any questions. Every photo is there for a reason."

"There are a couple of shots of a girl, who looks to be about eight—dark hair, braids," Scully continued. "I'm assuming that's Amelia."

"She probably looks just like my sister," Mulder guessed, hitting the steering wheel with the back of his right hand, obviously frustrated.

"She does," Scully agreed, not looking up from the album. "Do you want to switch places?"

Mulder shook his head. "I drive faster," he pointed out. "I'll look at it when we stop for lunch. I want to make sure I see it before Kyle has the chance. I still don't know what I'm going to say to him. Is there any indication of Samantha in those photos?"

"I see something reflected in the mirror of a few of these shots. If we can get these scanned, we might come up with something. It looks like a woman's face," Scully said, moving the album around to try and get a better look.

Suddenly, Scully dropped the album. "What was that?" Mulder asked as he heard the thud. He turned to his right when Scully failed to answer him. His line of sight went to the floor, then to Scully's shaking hands, and then to Scully's quivering mouth.

"What?" Mulder asked, raising his voice higher as he guided the car to the breakdown lane. He killed the engine, and tried to tune out Nathan's immediate protest.

"It's us," Scully creaked.

"What do you mean?" Mulder demanded, his hazel eyes wide. He looked from Scully to the boys in the backseat back to Scully. He snapped off his seat belt and picked up the album from the floor of the car.

Panic rose up Mulder's throat as he flipped through the pages furiously until he saw that he was looking at himself.


	8. Chapter Seven

Mulder took another look at the photograph, which depicted the boys seated in a double stroller. Both of them were grinning widely, snuggled up in hats and fleece jackets. Mulder's eyes quickly flicked to the tiny date stamp on the lower right corner of the photo: April 12. His eyes fluttered back to the boys; Nathan was gripping onto his Thomas train, and Will had some sort of biscuit in his hand. The stuffed dogs were tucked next to their owners, and the same diaper bag that was laying at Scully's feet was peaking through the right side of the stroller.

His breath drawn, Mulder focused on the back left hand corner of the picture; while he was pointing to something towards his right, Scully was turning around towards him, clad in sun glasses, her flame-red hair bouncing around her ears. Although his face was obstructed from view, Mulder recognized Kyle from his school baseball uniform.

Leaning back in the driver's seat, Mulder searched his memory for April 12, and specifically, whether it fell on one of the long weekends Scully had spent in Manhattan with him and Kyle. "The Gunmen will be able to authenticate the photo…all of this photos," Mulder blurted out, turning to Scully, who silently nodded in silence. "We can't jump to conclusions."

"It makes me sick," she finally stammered. "I could have seen them—we could have looked right at them and not have known."

"I know," Mulder said quietly as he twisted around to get a good look at the boys in the backseat. Both of them were squirming in their carseats. He hadn't realized he was tuning out Nathan's requests for "Ducky" until the boy let out a frustrated wail.

"We better get going if we want to make it to the motel the guys recommended before dinner," he said distractedly.

"We're going to have to stop for supplies when we get lunch," Scully reminded him. "Let's just get takeout and eat outside at a park—the boys will need to run around. If we're lucky, they'll tire themselves out and nap."

And run around they did. Mulder was impressed at their energy levels—had Kyle been like that to at this age? It bothered him to think that he might not know the answer because he hadn't spent enough time with his oldest son.

After stopping at the first diner that didn't meet Scully's definition of a greasy spoon establishment, they found a neighborhood park that offered both picnic tables and some green space. With a child on each of their laps, they did their best to engage them both in a conversation. Both of the boys had been babbling constantly during the car ride, and Nathan was sputtering out words left and right. Scully could tell that William was well on his way in being verbal, as he supplemented his limited vocabulary with gesticulations. He also had the tendency to bounce and kick when he was excited, and Scully was sure that her legs would be bruised by day's end, a small price she was more than happy to pay.

After demolishing their food, the boys were eager to run around, barely giving Scully time to eat a few forkfuls of salad, although Mulder did get in the half of his chicken parm sandwich that the boys hadn't eaten after destroying their own grilled cheese and tomato sandwiches. "The rabbit food gene must skip a generation," he dryly remarked after Scully tried to coax the boys into eating some green pepper slices.

By the time they carried the boys back to the car, their eyes were heavy with sleep. Despite the relaxed, sleepy look on his face, Nathan was tightly gripping his train in one hand and his stuffed dog in the other, leaving Mulder unable to pry them from his grasp. William was softly snoring by the time he was buckled into his seat, a small spit of drool pooling around his chin.

"I'll be as quick as I can," Scully said as Mulder dropped her off in front of a Wal-Mart a few moments later.

"I better drive around the lot," Mulder responded, as Nathan began to fidget once the car was stopped. "But I need you to get two things."

"Seeds and what else?" Scully reflexively answered with a knowing smile.

"Make it three things," Mulder bantered. "A different CD because I have already had enough Ducky for two lifetimes, and pick up that Gameboy game that Kyle was whining about the other day."

"Bribery, huh?"

Mulder shrugged. "I haven't decided whether I'll give it to him," he explained.

By the time Scully returned to the car twenty minutes later, Mulder was singing a different tune. "If you got that much stuff for them, I think we'll have to resort to bribery," he stated, flustered that the back of the SUV could have been filled in such short order.

"Mulder, let me put it this way," Scully explained as she climbed into the passenger's side and buckled her seat belt. "How many suits do you go through on a case?"

"But I can't help that," Mulder protested, trailing off when he realized that Scully wasn't going to buy any of his excuses, and that if he said much more, he may not get the package of sunflower seeds that was peeking out of the bag at her feet.

Three hours later they reached the motel that the Gunmen had recommended with their assurances of being a family-friendly establishment; Scully noted that it appeared to be quite a bit cleaner than the fleabags that Mulder had dragged her to over the years, and judging by the number of minivans and SUVs in the parking lot, the Gunmen had certainly done their homework.

As soon as they shuffled the boys into the room, Scully went about fixing snacks, while Mulder poked around the bags that he had lugged in from the car. "Don't bother asking whether we really need this stuff," Scully said knowingly once she caught a glance at Mulder's perplexed face.

"I wouldn't dream of it," Mulder responded as he set down the jumbo bottle of tear-free shampoo. "But you did get some toys. Let's see what we have."

Both boys immediately abandoned all interest in their juice and crackers and whipped their heads towards Mulder. Nathan outstretched his arms as soon as he caught sight of a familiar logo with blue packaging. When Mulder looked up, he was startled to see how both boys' full attention was on him. "I guess I should have spelled it out instead," he quipped.

"I thought they might break the ice," Scully smiled, sitting down next to the boys on the floor. "There are a couple of other things in that bag you should open up."

After finally shredding the packaging, Mulder joined them. Nathan patiently taught them the names of the trains, and William immediately began to play with the Sesame Street blocks. Both Mulder and Scully were easily able to coax the boys into conversation as they began to alternately race trains and build towers, which William loved to knock down. "Why don't you give this one to Mommy," Mulder suggested to Nathan after the boy handed him both the Percy and Henry trains, which Nathan had just chased under one of the queen-sized beds. It was the first time he had used the m-word, and he knew that Nathan's response, no matter what it was, would help him figure out how best to communicate with both boys.

Scully let our a small gasp when Nathan immediately toddled over to her, handing her a green train with a smile. "Thank you, Nathan," she grinned back at him. "I forget this one's name. Is this…Woofy?"

"No! Woofy a dog," Nathan explained, tugging his t-shirt, which Scully noticed he had a tendency to do when he got excited. "Percy!"

"And which train does Daddy have? Is it…Big Bird?"

"No!" Nathan laughed. "Henwy!"

"Which one's Big Bird, Will?" Mulder asked, spellbound at the look of Scully's face and she gazed at the boys. He had seen a similar look before, when they were spending time with Emily, but this time, she was lighter—free from anxiety, at least for the moment. And he had to admit that he felt a surge of pride when he heard Scully refer to him as 'daddy.'

"Is it…this one?" Mulder asked William, holding up a blue block.

"Dat Cookie," Will said, as he tried to fish the yellow block depicting Big Bird from his pile of toy rubble. Looking at their sons, Scully thought she was going to cry—she had been holding back her emotions throughout the day, and the relief and joy of seeing the boys respond to both of them, and to seemingly accept them as their parents, washed over her.

After another half-hour of playing with the trains and blocks, Mulder's cell phone rang. "Which room are you in?" Kyle asked, out-of-breath. "I really have to use the bathroom."

"I'll be out in a second," Mulder, jumping up nervously, catching Scully's eye from across the floor. The last thing he wanted was for Kyle to walk into the room unprepared.

Just as he ended the call, Nathan pulled at his jeans. "I'll be right back, buddy," Mulder promised, leaning down to tickle him, and then William. Scully immediately began to distract the toddlers from Mulder's departure by pulling out an alphabet game from one of the many bags that lay scattered on the floor.

"I—We'll be back," Mulder said with a weak smile as he grabbed his sun glasses from the crowded table, and walked out of the motel room, into the heat.

"Dad!"

Kyle came running from Langley's car. "I HAVE to use the bathroom!" he whined.

Mulder sputtered, "Dana's taking a shower, so why don't we go to the office and see—"

"He can use our room," a tired-looking brunette, flanked by two small children in sun hats and swimmies, called out from two rooms down as she absent-mindedly played with her ponytail.

"Robbie has a time out," one of the children piped up before her mother even finished her sentence. "He was naughty."

"That gives you at least four minutes," the woman continued, looking at Kyle as she waved him into the room. "Robert, time out means sitting on that chair, not lying down on the floor!"

"Thanks," Mulder said with a polite nod, before shaking hands with Langley.

"Listen," Mulder said quickly and softly, "Take the black photo album tucked under the driver's seat. We need all of the photos authenticated. You'll know what I'm talking about."

"Sure, but we probably won't be able to get started until we're back in DC. I don't know how much we can do on the road," Langley said apologetically.

"Time's not an issue, at least not yet," Mulder responded. "I just don't want Kyle to see it."

Langley nodded. "He's been really great today," the blonde man offered. "Just be straight with him."

Mulder nodded. "Thanks for everything you've guys have been doing," he shared.

"It's what friends are for, Muldy," Langley finished as Kyle emerged from the nearby motel room.

"Thanks a lot!" Kyle grinned as he passed mother-and-children. It came quickly apparent that young Robbie had earned himself some additional time in the chair, as his siblings began to whine about the unfairness of the situation to their mother.

"We better go before we get yelled at," Mulder smoothly said to Kyle in a conspiratorial whisper. "Let's go over to those picnic benches."

"What's wrong?" Kyle immediately froze. "Something bad happened, didn't it?"

"No!" Mulder said loudly. "Why would you think that?"

"Because we're going to a picnic bench with no food when it's really hot out," the eleven-year-old pointed out. "When we could be in air conditioning."

"I do have news," Mulder compromised. "But it's not bad. It's actually kind of exciting. Well, I think it is and Dana thinks it is, but we have to run it by you before we have a household decision, so to speak."

Kyle gave his father a dirty look. "What aren't you telling me?" he demanded.

Mulder gulped. His son sounded like him when he was having one of those all-too-often bad days in the office. Although he would never admit it out loud. No wonder Scully had a low-tolerance policy for all things bullshit.

"First off, we weren't on an official FBI case today," Mulder apologized. "I should probably have cleared that up with you yesterday, but I didn't. We were following a lead on something important, but it wasn't with work."

Kyle shrugged. "So?" he prompted. Mulder could practically see how Kyle was trying to connect the dots in his head.

"We needed to find two very important—" Mulder slowly continued, wishing that Scully were there to prevent him from completely bumbling the most important conversation he could have with is son.

"Aunt Samantha?" Kyle interrupted, wide-eyed.

Mulder shook his head. "Nothing to do with that. I want to be clear that the only reason we didn't say anything ahead of time was because we didn't know how accurate the information was, and we didn't want to promise anything or get our hopes up too much."

"Did you find a taysia blue siberian husky breeder?" Kyle practically yelped. "You said we could think about getting a dog. And you always need to get two dogs or else they'll get too lonely. And that's why we can't take a plane back. And you used your undercover name because you wanted to outsmart other people who want a puppy but not as much as me."

"Kyle!" Mulder yelled as Kyle ran towards the room, calling his son back to the picnic bench.

"Shit," he muttered once he realized that Kyle was not listening to him, and chased after his son. By the time he caught up with him, Kyle was pounding on the door. "Wait, please."

"Dana, Dad told me that we got—" Kyle stopped short when he noticed two things: there were a pile of toys on the floor, and that Scully was balancing a baby on her hip.

Mulder panicked; Scully and Kyle's backs were towards him, and the only face he could see was that of Nathan, who was looking up from his trains and blocks.

Kyle slowly turned around to look at his father. "You owe me at least one dog," he sputtered.

"One dog in exchange for two brothers?" Scully asked, trying to keep the mood light-hearted. "That might be a fair trade."

"Brothers?" Kyle asked, before realizing that there was a toddler partially blocked from his view.

"Let's try this again," Mulder sighed, as he closed the door behind him. It was going to be a long trip back to the Vineyard.


	9. Chapter Eight

Mulder still couldn't tell whether Kyle was legitimately angry with him, or if he was just guilt tripping him; he figured it was a mix of the two, but he wasn't sure about the split. As he played with percentages in his mind, he turned his ahead away from the ceiling and towards the sleeping figures on the motel bed. Squeezed between him and Scully were the two younger boys, emanating the comforting scents of soap and baby shampoo.

Giving them a bath had been an ordeal; while William happily splashed in the tub, Nathan had done his best to avoid the water, whining and kicking as Mulder had placed him next to his younger brother. Once he had finally settled down, he and Scully learned very quickly that while William loved playing with his bath toys, he did not appreciate getting his hair washed. The loudness of his screams was such that Mulder was practically certain someone would be knocking down their motel room door with accusations of child abuse. Nathan took advantage of the situation, trying to climb out of the tub when he was sure his parents' attention was elsewhere. Mulder still didn't understand how Scully caught on and was able to lunge across the tub to catch the toddler before he fell onto the tile floor.

Once the boys were in their new pajamas, Scully asked Kyle if he wouldn't mind playing with them while they cleaned up the ungodly mess in the bathroom. Mulder noticed the flicker of surprise and pride that crossed Kyle's face when he realized that he was being trusted with his brothers. It allowed Scully and Mulder to snatch a few moments of privacy before they realized that it was _too_ quiet in the other room. Scully got up to investigate, leaving Mulder to mop up the rest of the soaking floor with the last of the flimsy towels.

"Not a good idea," Scully said once she caught on to what the boys were doing. While Kyle was reciting "twelve little monkeys jumping on the bed," Nathan was chanting "monkey" as he jumped up and down.

"But it's fun," Kyle whined. "And we're being careful. I'm bouncing on my knees so I don't knock them over."

"No jumping on the bed," Scully continued. She was torn; the last thing she wanted was a trip to the emergency room while quasi-undercover; however, the look of joy on the boys' faces was softening her.

"I'm a monkey!" Nathan shouted as he began to bounce on the bed again. Will was wobbling to get himself up, and Kyle immediately helped him steady himself.

"And I'm holding Will's hand," Kyle defended. "It's not really dangerous when we're in the middle of the bed."

"A lot of things are not really dangerous and we don't do them anyway," Scully pointed out as she lifted both toddlers onto the floor, secretly hoping that Kyle's bounce-a-thon had tired them out enough that there wouldn't be a bedtime ordeal on the same scale as their battle over a bath.

Luckily, the two younger boys fell asleep after a story-and-a-half, but four hours later, Mulder was still unable to slumber. Kyle was sleeping in the second bed, turned away from his family. He hadn't said much to his father since their bungled conversation, answering only when Scully spoke to him. Although it hurt, Mulder knew that it was a good sign that Kyle was talking to at least someone, and it looked as though he was having a good time with his new brothers.

Still, guilt weighed heavily on Mulder's mind. Guilt about failing his oldest son by not having been a bigger part of his life; guilt about failing Scully by not telling her of Kyle's existence; guilt that he hadn't known about the two younger children—basically he felt guilt about things that were no longer in his control. Instead of reassuring him, that fact just drove his guilt into overdrive.

Nathan and William were sleeping soundly, surrounded by their blankets and favorite toys. Mulder smiled as he saw the peacefulness in which Scully slept—he could count the number of times she slept in such peace. Her left arm stretched above her, snaking under the pillow that she and Nathan shared. Mulder gently played with the rings that were still on her fourth finger; he didn't know much about jewelry—a few years ago, he had stashed some of the pieces that he inherited into safes and safety deposit boxes in case he ever needed to go on the run.

Before Kyle had entered into the picture, he and Scully rarely talked about the future, only that they wanted to be together. Scully had once told him that marriage was irrelevant to her; if she wanted to be with anyone, she would be, through hell or high water. She wasn't going to be guilted into staying into a relationship because of marriage vows. From the bits and pieces she had let slip to Mulder, he knew that she had seen ugly things happen to people who stayed in bitter, unhappy unions. For some reason, he had always idealized her childhood, filled with siblings and loving parents. It was easy for him to forget that, like with him, she had an absentee father, constantly moved, and had siblings with whom she fought. They were both agreed that they wouldn't want anyone to have the childhoods they experienced.

He wasn't sure if he would want to get married (again) either. Despite his bitter divorce and the chaos it caused over ten years after the fact, he was a romantic at heart. There was no one else he would ever want to be with; rebuilding his relationship with Scully over the past several months had made them closer in many respects, and he didn't want anything to change. A part of him wanted Scully to wear a ring—not the one she currently wore—instead, something like the one his grandmother had left him. But he recognized that he and Scully, at heart, were rebels. They would do things their way.

Mulder knew that Preston would probably advise them to get married for practical purposes, and that he and Scully would do that, would do _anything_ to keep the children safe. "I love you," Mulder whispered as he finally let go of her rings, and instead slipped his hand into hers as he tried once again to fall asleep.

He woke up to Will squeezing his nose a few hours later. The dusty clock radio read five-thirty am; even though the alarm was set for seven, he knew that he wouldn't be going back to sleep. "Let's not wake up anybody, buddy," Mulder said as Will began to babble. As soon as they got out of the bed, immediately Nathan rolled over, somehow stretching himself over their half of the bed.

After changing the boy's diaper and listening intently to his garbling, Mulder figured out that he was thirsty. "Let's go forage for some food," Mulder quietly suggested, lifting up Will, who immediately pointed to his stuffed dog and blanket. Mulder scribbled a note to Scully, hoping she would find it on her bedside table, and headed outside, with Will in tow, grabbing a plastic tumbler cup as an afterthought.

They headed towards the small diner that shared the parking lot with their motel. They had eaten there the night before, and even Scully had admitted that the food was good, albeit greasy. Mulder ordered some coffee and homemade doughnuts, and Will charmed the waitress enough that she insisted on getting him some milk for his tumbler before they had even sat down. Will made quick work of his breakfast, and Mulder was thankful that Scully had the foresight to stop for clothes the afternoon before, as the baby had managed to make himself sticky from head to toe.

As Mulder sipped his coffee, he began to converse with Will. "Your Mommy isn't a morning person, not like us," Mulder told him. "So that means we get to sneak out and have some real food for breakfast, and none of her bee pollen yogurt stuff. But we'll pretend to like it sometimes, okay?"

Will looked up at his father, his green eyes wide with understanding. "Yes?" Mulder prompted.

"Yesh," Will repeated, reaching for the piece of doughnut Mulder was breaking off.

"So you and I can have our special time in the morning," Mulder suggested, holding will close in his lap. "Daddy usually goes out on a run. You can come too if you want. We can find a good fast stroller for you, and your puppy dog and blanket."

"Doggy!" Will repeated as Mulder nuzzled the dog against his nose.

"I think I owe you an apology for your nose," continued Mulder. "You and your big brother Kyle."

"Nose!" Will said, reaching towards his father's face.

"Good job, buddy," Mulder said, kissing the top of his youngest son's head. He marveled at the boy looked like a blend between his parents. While Mulder saw himself in the boy's facial features, his expressions reminded him of Scully, as well as her brother Charlie. Mulder had only met her younger brother once, but had thoroughly enjoyed their visit. Charlie and his family were due to spend an extended weekend with them over the Fourth of July.

During their walk back to the motel room, Mulder made a quick call to Preston, requesting that he access a safety deposit box for him, assuring the older man that it was fine if the items couldn't be delivered until their arrival on the Vineyard the next afternoon. It was 7:00 AM by the time they got back, and everyone was still asleep. It took about fifteen minutes for Mulder to get Will to cooperate in getting into a clean set of clothes on, and he knew that it would be hard to get the baby to stay quiet for much longer.

After making sure that Will was settled with the blocks that he had scattered across the floor, Mulder turned off the alarm and got into bed behind Scully, softly kissing her neck and right shoulder. As she began to slowly wake up, he pressed against her firmly. "Did the alarm go off?" she sleepily asked, trying to tilt her head to face him directly.

"Not in front of the children," Mulder tsked softly into her ear as he grounded his hips into her.

Immediately, Scully giggled. He couldn't remember the last time he had heard that particular laugh—it was the one she let out only rarely, usually when she was completely relaxed. Since no alcohol or sex was involved, Mulder took this as good sign. "It wasn't that funny," he protested as she managed to turn to him, resting her head on his left shoulder.

"It's just nice to wake up this way. I could get used to it," she softly responded as she turned to him, rubbing the sensitive space above his breastbone.

"I hope we do," Mulder responded, bending down to kiss her. He lost himself for a moment, and all of a sudden realized that room had become quite noisy. He broke apart from Scully, realizing that the commotion was coming from the boys. He could tell from his vantage point that Kyle was only faking being asleep, and was leading a chorus of "eeews" that the toddlers were eagerly mimicking.

Mulder sighed. If this kept off, it was going to be a long drive to Massachusetts.

Somehow they managed to meet Preston at their designated spot and time in northern Virginia. They were at another nondescript roadside restaurant; luckily, it catered to families, and the toddlers were busy coloring while waiting for their food. Preston slipped a manila folder towards Mulder and Scully, nodding at them to open it. While they skimmed the documents, Preston handed his keys to Kyle, and asked him to get something from his car. Once the boy was out of an earshot, he asked his clients, "Are you sure you are okay with this?"

Mulder and Scully looked at one another, nodding. "There won't be any suspicion?" Scully asked, afraid she was sound naive.

"None," Preston promised. "If anybody goes looking for anything regarding what is in this folder, they'll be in the system as soon as this afternoon. The birth certificates, everything, will all be in place by the end of the day."

"And the other?" Mulder asked, squeezing Scully's knee under the table.

"Everything," Preston reassured the younger man. "You have nothing to worry about."

"You'll put your guys on finding Sam, right?" Mulder asked.

"That goes without saying," Preston told him. "We've done a sweep, and Langley told me last night that there might be a partial photo image of the girl. We're on it, Mulder."

"Thank you," Mulder said absently, trailing off when he saw that Kyle was back within earshot, holding Preston's keys and a briefcase. As he looked around the table, he couldn't help but wonder what it would look like to have two other seats at the table filled.

"You're sure about this?" Mulder started to ask Scully quietly.

"It's not even a question," Scully reassured him. "We're in this together, partner."

Mulder sat back, thinking of how lucky he was to be surrounded with such love. Scully squeezed his arm again, as though she knew exactly what he was thinking. He then realized that she was discreetly pointing out that Kyle was speaking to him. Then the feelings of guilt that had sat on him over the past twelve hours finally just melted away.


End file.
